No Rest For The Wicked
by Black Wolf-Dog
Summary: It was just another missing persons case, until it became something else entirely. When a small town detective realizes she's in over her head, she calls for help and gets so much more than she bargained for. Turns out small choices can have big consequences. Featuring plotting Decepticons and an uptight tactician. Eventual Prowl/OC
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer for whole fic: I don't own Transformers, no matter how much I wish I did.**_  
_

**Black Wolf-Dog: **_So I couldn't resist, I've been a Transformers fan for a long while now, but I didn't want to write a story until I felt I could do the amazing characters justice, and then this idea hit me and just refused to go away, I'm hoping it comes out in writing as well as it played in my head. I intend to keep the canon characters as much in character as possible, a few creative liberties will be taken but mostly in regards to events in a character's history. This is AU, in the live-action universe after the first film, though several other-continuity characters will make some appearances._

_This story is very much an experiment for me as it will be in 3rd person (for those who've read my previous stories, you know I usually do 1st person), and there will also be some pov switches. No worries, I won't be doing the same scene from two pov's, but this story will follow two main characters, Prowl and my OC, and so will jump back and forth between them up until they meet and are in the scenes together. Page breaks will be used to indicate those jumps._

_Like I said, this is totally new for me writing this way and is slightly out of my comfort zone, so any constructive criticism will be greatly appreciated._

_Flames will be laughed at and used to roast marshmellows. So please don't flame, I really don't need those extra calories ;)_

_This story is dedicated to the wonderfully amazing T.M. Wolf , who got me from 'interested' in Transformers to 'obsessed', and without, this story never would have been done. Thanks Wolf for letting me bounce all these crazy, half-baked ideas off of you and for encouraging me to write this!_

_All of the chapters will begin with a quote I feel fits the chapter, I'd love to hear some of your opinions of them!_

_WARNING: This goes for the whole story, I intend to do the Decepticons justice. They will not be like the movie, they will not be like the shows. They are going to be Decepticons, they are going to do horrible, gruesome things to each other, to the Autobots and to humans. So please, if you are going to read this, make sure you have the level of maturity and stomach to handle it._

_And now, onto the prologue of No Rest for the Wicked! Enjoy! :)_

* * *

_ All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another. ~Anatole France_

_**December 24**_

The snow had stopped falling some time ago, the clouds giving way to the full moon's reflective power, lighting up the winter wonderland. The cold couldn't dampen the immense cheer the little town exuded as carolers roamed from door to door, singing of good tidings and Christmas spirit. Families loitered on the sidewalks, laughing with friends as their children frolicked through the snow. Holiday lights and decorations twinkled merrily from every house, casting colorful illuminations on the streets.

A man walked by himself along the road, a small smile on his face as he took in the serenity, happiness and love his home was surrounded by. He took a deep breath, relishing the clean air even as the cold lightly stung his lungs, enjoying the quiet as he breached the line of houses. Checking his watch he determined he had at least half an hour before the family would come looking for him. As much as he loved and adored all of them, there was only so much of the giggling and shrieking children and his uncles' raucous laughter he could take in one sitting. So he continued to walk away from the celebrating families, reveling in the unearthly quiet the snow always brought about while he could.

It didn't take him long to reach the very outskirts of town, the shops closed up and dark for the holidays, the bright moon above providing more than enough light to see by. He shoved his boots into the light layer of snow, mindlessly kicking it up as he recalled memories of his childhood here, how he'd climbed that tree on top of the hill, or skateboarded off of that shop roof only to land in the back of his mother's truck as she drove by. A relaxing sigh escaped him as he reveled in the memories of his carefree youth, idly wondering if the old mill still stood at the end of Bonnie Lake road. Glancing at his watch again, he figured he had enough time to go see.

It really wasn't much of a surprise to find the old thing still standing, dark and dreary; the wood sagging in what could be imagined grief and exhaustion. A limp wreath hung from the door, adding to the sad effect instead of dampening it. The boards groaned and creaked in protest against the soft breeze. He couldn't help but grin to himself, feeling only slightly foolish at having once been afraid of the 'haunted' mill, of spending an entire night inside by himself to prove he was a 'man'. It had been a strong tradition passed down amongst the boys, and now ten years down the road, he knew it probably still was.

Another sigh, he knew he'd have to return home more often, the pure happiness of the entire town was infectious. There were no worries when he came here, they fell of his shoulders the second it came into sight. Everyone here was an innocent, with no idea of what was going on with the rest of the world. And it was perfect.

Turning away from the mill, he started back toward the town, mentally preparing himself for another few hours of cheerful noise. He burrowed into his coat as the wind grew in strength, biting at his cheeks and freezing his breath. The light dimmed as the clouds reigned over the sky once again, releasing giant snowflakes onto the already dusted ground below. He picked up his pace, belatedly remembering a storm was supposed to be moving in tonight. At least he could be thankful the reflective snow lit up the road enough he could make his way back, and that a steaming cup of coffee would be waiting for him back home.

Maybe he'd give in to his childish desire and get hot chocolate instead, complete with whipped cream and a candy cane.

He'd almost made it to the first shop when a peculiar sound reached his ears over the now howling winds; growling. Turning back the way he had come, he was assaulted with a blinding light as he placed the noise to a high powered engine. The car fully crested the hill, dropping down the slope and removing the glaring headlights from his vision. It was an odd thing, someone driving around this late on Christmas Eve, but then, the elderly couple across the street had said they were hoping their granddaughter would be coming up tonight.

The wind pounded at him, burning his exposed ears and hurtling snow down the back of his neck, making him wish he'd thought to grab his scarf.

He was no car expert, but the flashy, purring silver machine that slid across the ice next to him probably cost more than just a pretty penny. There really was no way he wasn't going to admire the sleek curves as it came to a full stop, he was a guy after all, it was practically in his blood.

The passenger door swung open, the interior light momentarily blinding him after so long in relative darkness.

"Excuse me!" a male voice called out from the driver's side. It took several seconds for his eyes to adjust enough to look the other man straight on, noting he looked somewhat like one of his uncle's buddies. "I'm a bit lost I'm afraid," the driver gave a half-hearted chuckle as he held up an upside-down map, "And was wondering if you could show me how to get back to the interstate?"

"Sure." He moved closer to the vehicle and at the driver's prompting, leaned partially into the car to show the man the correct route, taking notice of the rich leather underneath his hand. He hoped the driver didn't have far to go, this storm was getting worse, and no one should be stuck on the road away from family on Christmas Eve. "You go back the way you came until you reach this junction," He instructed, running a finger over the path on the map, "then you take a left—"

The wind gusted, slamming the door into the back of his legs and pitching him forward into the car, whose interior lighting had suddenly gone out. A sharp prick on his neck made him wonder if he'd been stung or zapped, but before he could give it much more thought, his mind turned fuzzy and he fell limp against the seat.

The driver seemed to pay little mind to the unconscious man, spinning the car around and speeding off the way he had come, the wind silencing the throaty engine and the heavy snowfall covering all traces that he had ever been there.

* * *

For it being such a late hour on Christmas Eve, the streets were surprisingly still packed with people. Then again, this was New York, the city that never sleeps, not even on rain-soaked holidays. People bustled back and forth, arms loaded with colorful, bulging bags while screens flashed their various advertisements, urging the crowds into stores than never closed. It was the night before the most gift-giving holiday of the year, and this was New York, so why not go a little crazy? The pain in the wallet could be realized later, after the presents brought about joyous expressions and exclamations from friends and family.

Jewelers particularly loved this time of year and had all-hands-on-deck as husbands and boyfriends rushed for the last minute sparkle that would make up for the raunchy gifts they suddenly realized would probably get them in trouble.

Women emptied the shelves of tape and wrapping paper, finding out the hard way they didn't have has much as they'd though they'd had left over from the year before, and quickly discovering the small roles didn't go nearly as far as they claimed to.

Children were empty on the streets; all tucked into their beds, trying to fall asleep so Santa could come yet too excited and hyped up on sugary candy canes to lie still for more than a few seconds. Many attempted to creep out of their rooms and catch a glimpse of Santa eating the cookies they had left out for him.

The grandparents were the only ones resting peacefully; they'd done this routine enough to have figured it all out. They were ready for the crazy morning to come a week in advance, so that while the youngsters fretted and rushed about, they could laugh and reminisce and sip a glass of eggnog.

It was the Chaos of Christmas and it never changed from year to year. Rain, snow or clear cold nights wouldn't prevent the last-minute shoppers from mauling the stores, and the shop owners would never complain as they heard the registers ring.

Taxi services also loved the holidays, more specifically, the cold, rainy holidays that made walking too miserable to bear, especially with arms loaded with gifts that just _could not_ get wet. The yellow cars were almost as coveted as the hottest toys that continuously flew off the shelves, the high demand causing drivers to go just a little bit faster, hoping to cram as many miles as possibly before the crowds disappeared until New Years.

As such, there were always those unlucky ones who found themselves without that toy, and stranded on the wet streets packed with people and forced to make the walk home. One of those unfortunate individuals was a woman, there on vacation but still hoping to grab some great souvenirs for the siblings before the shelves were gutted. She'd found presents they'd love, but was not privileged with a ride back to the hotel. So she hefted the many heavy bags further up her arms, mumbled a few words absent the holiday cheer and set off down the street.

It was far easier said than done to walk down a New York sidewalk with arms loaded to the max. The woman felt much like a rope trying to be thread through a needle.

Salvation! There through the throngs of people she spotted a Taxi pulling up to the curb, relieving its burden of two men just six paces in front of her. All she had to do was reach it and climb into the backseat before anyone else had the chance. She made it within two steps before a small hoard of women besieged the cheerfully-colored car, filling it to the brim. Her fingertips grazing the trunk as her yellow rescue disappeared into the mass of occupied cabs.

The woman huffed, wondering what had possibly given her the bright idea of coming out of her warm hotel room tonight, before trudging on, cursing the rain as it came down harder.

"Need a ride?" She wasn't sure what made her turn, the man who'd spoken couldn't have been talking to her, she didn't know anyone in the city after all, but turn she did, finding a red sports car she hadn't even heard approach coasting next to her, passenger window rolled down and driver leaning over the console, staring expectantly at her.

"Are you a taxi?" She asked, mentally kicking herself for the question a moment later when he laughed. He had a nice laugh, she decided.

He shook his head, brunette hair falling over dark eyes, "No, just going in the same direction as you. Plus I saw how close you were to grabbing the last cab. So do you need a ride? Or are you enjoying the rain too much?" He grinned; oh he certainly had a nice smile too.

The thought of a warm, dry ride with a gorgeous man was almost too good to be true, but the warning bells stayed silent. She was surrounded by people in one of the busiest parts of town, plus this was Christmas, people often reached out and did unexpected acts of kindness around the holidays. The fact that the driver belonged on the movie screen and his car probably cost more than her salary was just a bonus. This _was_ New York after all, stranger things have happened.

Realizing she'd probably kept him waiting too long, she snapped out of her thoughts, decided to live in the moment and opened the door. "Thank you so much." She smiled, pulling all of her bags into the car before swinging the door shut. "I'm staying at the Hilton if you're willing to go that far, or you can drop me off anywhere, a bus stop or taxi station." She snapped her mouth shut when she realized she was starting to ramble. '_Live in the moment,' _she reminded herself, '_stop overthinking things.' _"Thanks again, really, you're a life saver."

The man grinned and pulled away from the curb, locks clicking into place as he sped into and around traffic, the crazy driving blending perfectly into the mad dash of harried drivers.

And the crowds continued to pulse on, barely giving a second's glance to the woman who got into a red car, this was Christmas Eve after all, there were too many things left to do and too many people to weave through to take notice of an un-extraordinary woman doing an equally un-extraordinary act.

Miles away, a bum glanced up from his fire as a throaty engine roared by the entrance to his alley; these roads were usually quiet after dark, so he tugged his ragged coat tighter about his shoulders and stepped out from under the protection of his tarp and into the rain to investigate what had been tossed—or fallen off of—the car. He grinned a crooked smile as the holidays came a few hours early for him, the bags full of clothes and gifts and no sign of the car coming back for them.

And as he went back to his fire with new possessions in tow, the rain continued to pour.

* * *

_**December 25**_

The cargo plane's landing certainly wasn't the smoothest it could have been, and the Major on board had to wonder if the crew had already broken out the eggnog despite it being only eight hours into Christmas morning.

As much as he wanted to be home with his wife and daughter, getting back to his home-away-from-home from a mission with zero loss of life was a gift in his book. Now he could enjoy the holiday, and allow all of the families of those around him to enjoy it too.

The massive loading ramp finally lowered and the soldier paused a moment at the top as the morning sun blinded him, the heat already a force to be reckoned with. An engine revved behind him, a thick, black bumper lightly pushing into his back as he tarried too long. Lennox smirked as he let himself be 'guided' down the ramp. For all his big, tough attitude, the truck _really_ didn't like flying. The soldier would have dared say the mech was _afraid_ of flying, if he was willing to be stuck riding in the truck's bed…again.

Lennox started on his way towards the officers' barracks, weaving through the orderly chaos of NEST soldiers going about their business, many stopped to salute him and he waved them on, eager for the luke-warm shower that awaited him. It never seemed to matter where the mission had taken him, the deserts of Africa, the mountains of South America, the frozen tundra of Russia or even the small towns of the US, at the end of the day, he found himself coated in sweat, grime and other questionable substances, whether they made enemy contact or not.

And now he was ready to be clean and feel human again, even if there was only one water temperature on Diego Garcia and he was more than likely to find several pesky red crabs inhabiting his bathroom.

Many blessedly long minutes later the Major walked back into the sun, damp hair, clean clothes and off duty for the next 24 hours.

_"…body was found on the side of the 415 highway; authorities have yet to identify the victim and the cause of death but tell us the older woman has been deceased for several days…" _One of the several news stations blared out above the rest, commanding the main screen and greeting Lennox as he walked into the rec room.

"Epps!" he called, waving over at the black man lounging on one of the couches, surrounded by remotes, "Turn that off! It's Christmas, no news on Christmas!" He grinned as the airman laughed, obediently changing all ten televisions to the annual broadcast of holiday movies.

"So how was the trip?" Epps smirked, having already heard Ironhide grumbling about cowardly 'Con scum and too-small planes just minutes before.

Lennox groaned, dropping down onto the couch with his friend, "The signal we'd picked up disappeared before we'd even completely crossed the water, whatever they were looking for they found it and cleared out."

"What _is_ that?" The two men glanced behind them as a large, silver, metallic being rolled into the room, blue optics flashing from the soldiers to the screens.

"Rudolph, care to join us?" Lennox offered, motioning to the super-sized 'couches' set up behind him.

Sideswipe took another look at the movie, "Its nose is glowing."

"Yup." Lennox was always impressed with the Cybertronian's ability to mimic human expressions, and the confusion on the silver mech's face was providing more entertainment than the 60's graphics.

"It's a talking deer."

"Reindeer actually." Epps supplied helpfully, taking full enjoyment of the moment.

The Autobot's optics dimmed for a moment as he hacked the Internet, "It looks nothing like a reindeer…..is it _flying_?"

"Yes, yes he is." Lennox didn't even try to stop the grin, pondering how the 'bot would react to some of the 80's cartoons and wondering if it would be anything like the fiasco that occurred after introducing a certain black and white to Scooby Doo.

Sideswipe shook his head, rolling back towards the exit whilst muttering about the deranged creations of humans. "Rudolph is a classic!" Epps shouted after him, "Don't knock the classics!"

The rec room now void of distractions, the two men turned back to enjoy the simplicity of the storyline, Epps wondering if Hollywood would turn to it for its next reboot.

_"…all units we have another missing persons report, be on the lookout for a 24 year old white male…"_ The soldiers groaned as their movie was once again interrupted by an Autobot, the mech passing through the room and towards the Energon dispenser that had been set up in the corner.

"It's Christmas Prowl! No police scanners on Christmas!" Lennox chastised, doubting the cruiser ever didn't monitor the scanners when he wasn't on duty.

"Crime does not stop simply for a day in which a portion of Earth's population celebrates." The tactician replied, grabbing his Energon cube and disappearing out of the room, scanner still spitting out details of the latest missing person.

Epps rolled his eyes, "I swear he's a metal Spock." His fellow soldier agreed and the two fell back into a comfortable silence, enjoying the peace in which they could watch the movie they'd grown up to.

An explosion rocked the base, fuzzing out the TVs for a moment and shaking the ground; a single alarm went off in response, a low, short buzz that had come to be known as the 'Wheeljack alarm'. Epps shifted his position on the couch, throwing his hands behind his head, "Just another day in paradise."

* * *

_**December 26**_

This was hell.

The smell alone was enough to roll even the strongest stomachs; the stench coated the air, melding with the fog to create a smog that clung to the mountain valley for acres.

Tom usually loved his job as Park Ranger, plenty of solitude in Mother Nature's most beautiful landscapes, but investigating the source of this rancid smell had to be the worst assignment in the history of bad assignments. It clung to him, seeping through his coat and pasting against his skin with a layer of freezing grime he knew would take days to scrub off. His throat tightened; repeatedly tensing as his body attempted to throw up even when there was nothing left to hurl.

Honestly sewers in the summer smelt better than this.

He reached the lowest part of the valley, where the trees dropped away and the grass stood waist high; the smell growing stronger with every step he took. A few steps further and his body could take it no longer, forcing him to bend over and heave for the sixth time in an hour. This really couldn't be healthy for him; he should have demanded a gas mask. Then again, no one would have guessed it to get this bad, tear gas was probably less painful to breathe.

The smog was the thickest here, limiting his sight to only a few feet in front of him, the sick smell of decay hanging in the air in an almost tangible form.

He didn't know it was possible for something to smell this putrid, for scent alone to threaten to suffocate him; that the human body was capable of heaving this many times in so short a time span.

His boots squelched in the tall grass, bringing his trek to a halt as he paused to see just what he had stepped in. He knew these grounds, there was no water source within a mile, it hadn't rained or snowed recently and it was barely above freezing, any liquid that squished into the mud had to be in large quantities fresh.

Both of his boots were red, soaked up the sides in the stained gore.

Then he caught sight of something in the grass just inches from his foot.

He didn't even have a chance to try and stop the retch, doubling over as his gut revolted at the sight before him.

Ripping out his walkie-talkie he attempted to reach the station, wishing not for the first time he had cell service out here. He needed the police; this went well beyond his pay-grade and expertise.

As he fumbled with the communications device, desperately hoping someone would hear his call, a morbid part of him wondered just who the arm in the stained mud belonged too, who or what had torn it so raggedly and where the rest of the body was.

He didn't know much about the human body, but he knew the amount of blood that had seeped into the ground didn't come from just the arm, possibly not even a single body. It rolled his stomach even more when he realized the low decay of the arm meant it was relatively recent, and in no way the cause of the widespread stench. Something else out here was causing the smell, and Tom had a horrifying realization of what it probably was.

He cursed as the walkie-talkie received nothing but static, he'd have to hike almost all the way back out to find service of any kind, and he knew he couldn't take the continuous gagging a second time.

Taking careful notice of every step he took, he continued through the newly formed bog, all the while attempting to raise someone, anyone, on the radio. He needed to get out of there quickly, leave this job to those trained for it, perhaps take a long vacation, find a desk job where the worst he would see were paper cuts.

Hope swelled in him as he heard a roaring engine through the smog clouds, he wasn't alone! This person could give him a ride back to the station; get him the hell away from this area as fast as possible. He couldn't handle this carnage, this was beyond any slasher movie or cop show, this was a reality he wanted to put as far behind him as fast as possible.

Turning, he tried to pinpoint where the vehicle had pulled in, the headlights were blocked by the tainted fog, making it nearly impossible to pinpoint the exact location of the vehicle. Even the sound of the growling horsepower echoed through the frozen mist and Tom found he could only take an educated guess about where to go. Off to the right then, there was an old logging road in that direction, it had to be where the 4x4 had come up from.

With that in mind, he headed off, disappearing into the bog.

* * *

_And that is the prologue! Some nostalgia, some frustration, some relief and a whole lotta stink. If any of you had problems reading Tom's experience, I suggest you back out now, because the 'Cons can and will do worse than that._

_Anyways, the whole thing was fun to write, though I had a blast with Diego Garcia, especially with Sideswipe and Rudolph. ;) Anyone else notice how completely horrible everyone was to Rudolph and the elf in that movie? And then they were only nice to them when they needed something from them, ie. Rudolph's shiny nose? Nice message to teach to the kids guys. XD Anyways, a bit of humor, giving a little shout-out to G1 Transformers if anyone caught it. Aaaaand that will probably be the last of the humor...for a long time... :D_

_There were 3 Decepticons in this chapter, chocolate fudge to anyone who can correctly guess what their names are!_

_Next time on NRFTW: We meet the OC, get a bit more Prowl-time and the plot actually starts! _

_Please drop a review and let me know your thoughts! Really, the little box is right there, looking so lonely with no words written in it, don't leave it lonely! Feed the review box!_

_The update will likely come the day after Christmas, so until then, Merry Christmas and God Bless!_

**~Black Wolf-Dog~**


	2. So It Begins

**Black Wolf-Dog:**_ Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! And look! We survived yet another apocolypse! I wonder how many we will survive this coming year? ;) So before we get on those lose-holiday-weight-New Year-resolutions, please take a seat for just a few more minutes! :) Here is Chapter 2! Or...really Chapter 1, since the first was a prologue...eh, semantics ;) Anyways, here is the actual start of the story! Where we meet the OC and get a bit more of a look into Prowl. Again, any constructive criticism will be greatly appreciated! And look! I'm even updating when I said I would! Hopefully I'll be able to get out updates once a week or at least once every two weeks, but we'll see how things go when winter classes start :P_

**TMWolf: **_Since I already responded to your amazingly awesome review, I shall just tell you here thanks for being such a wonderful friend! I couldn't do this without you! :D_

**Frog1: **_Glad you find it interesting and I hope this chapter keeps you interested and wanting more! :)_

_Without further ado, I give you the next chapter of NRFTW!_

* * *

_Innocence most often is a good fortune and not a virtue. ~Anatole France_

Four days after Christmas and the officers moved about at a leisurely pace as the detectives and lieutenants finished up old case reports, the phones blessedly quiet.

The dawn's light shined merrily through the windows, belaying the freezing temperatures outside. The snow may be holding off for now, but winter had come full-force and all of the officers were glad for the lack of calls, none of them were looking forward to leaving the heated comfort of the officer or their patrol cars.

The phones that did ring were from the numerous hapless drivers who had ended up in the ditch when the black ice tore traction away from them. Once assuring that no one was hurt, they were transferred to the towing companies.

One of the officers paused briefly in her reports when her desk phone rang, "Detective Blake." She answered, half of her attention still on the paperwork in front of her. It was the bane of her existence, but it was worth it to spend a few hours filling out the papers if it meant dedicating her life to helping people.

"Darcy, I need your help." The desperation in the female voice made the detective pause, pen poised above the paper, a million scenarios running through her mind.

"What do you need Amy?" She frowned, wondering what could have shaken her usually happy-go-lucky friend so much.

"It's Andrew, he didn't come home from his hike last night." Her voice wobbled, cueing the officer that she was barely holding back her panic.

"Amy, deep breaths, are you sure he wasn't planning to stay the night out there?" It certainly wouldn't have been the first time Amy's husband had gone up into the woods for a hike and decided to spend the night, but her panic at his absence was unusual.

"No! He swore he was just going up for a few hours with some friends! He said he'd be back by dark. Every time he has stayed the night he's always made it home by morning! Something had to have happened up there. Darcy, what if he got hurt?"

"I need you to stay calm, Amy. Andrew knows what he's doing. He probably just lost track of time and ran out of daylight. He'll probably walk through the door any minute now. Just hang tight. I'll be there in a few."

"Thanks." Darcy sighed as she hung up, grabbing her keys and shrugging on her jacket. Her quiet day was over. She only wished this case didn't involve people she knew. That only made it harder.

"New case?" The homicide detective seated across from her asked.

"Andrew didn't make it back from his hike last night, I'm going to check it out."

Her old mentor nodded, "Let me know if you need fresh eyes."

"Thanks John, we might need the search crew again." He responded with a mock salute as he turned back to his files, the unspoken promise between them, he would always have her back, just as she would always have his.

Stepping outside, she quickly zipped up her jacket, shivering as the breaching sun did nothing to warm the frigid air, it seemed to give it more bite than warmth.

It was a twenty minute drive to Amy's place, made longer by the ice that clung to the roads, ready to send the next unsuspecting car into the ditch. Darcy was thankful she had enough experience driving in these conditions and her patrol car had the grip to keep her on the road the entire way.

Pulling into the driveway, she noted Andrew must have taken the old red Chevy truck and sent out a quick APB on it before getting out and heading towards the front door.

Ringing the bell, it took less than five seconds for the door to fly open and a small body to fling itself at the detective. "Thank God you're here; I can't take this by myself! Why isn't he back yet? What could have happened to him?" Darcy let the hysterical woman continue to ramble into her shoulder as the words quickly melted down into sobs.

"Come on Amy, let's get inside so you can tell me the whole story. You shouldn't worry too much. Knowing him he'll turn up in a cave somewhere with some story about how he wrestled it away from a bear."

She tried to be as comforting as possible as she steered the woman back into the house, tried to help calm her down; but it was never something she had been particularly good at, and it was even harder with the normally cheerful girl she'd known for years.

As she moved her friend over to sit on the couch and went about the kitchen grabbing her a cup of tea, a sinking pit of dread dropped into her gut. Andrew would make the fourth missing person this week, during what should be the quietest time of the year. The other three had seemingly dropped off the face of the planet and Darcy hadn't been able to find any of them. She didn't know if she could go through giving that sort of news again.

"Do you know where Andrew was planning on hiking?" She asked once Amy had quieted her sobs enough to be coherent again.

"He said he was going up to the Deadwood Reservoir; that he was going to take the straightest trail up there and come back." She sniffed, rubbing at the tears streaked across her cheeks and mindlessly accepting the steaming cup offered to her.

"You said he went up with friends?" Darcy asked, pulling out her small note pad and jotting everything down, she hoped he went up with a big group; otherwise retracing his steps would be harder.

Amy nodded, "Yeah, he went up with Jake and Brian, you uh, you met them at the dinner last month."

The detective remembered the two men, a pair of harmless flirty, funny guys as obsessed with the outdoors as Andrew was. They all were experienced hikers, which heightened their chances of survival if it was an accident that had delayed them.

The interview continued as Darcy recorded all of the necessary information, what he was wearing, when he had left, what his exact plans had been and the like. It was the routine, but it never got any easier.

Almost an hour later she left the house, theories running rampart in her head. Hikers went up and disappeared in those mountains all the time, though most of them either found their way out within a day or two or were pulled out by search and rescue. Andrew knew those trails enough to be one of those people who stumbled his way out, especially with his fellow hiking-enthusiast friends. But a nagging voice in the back of her mind wasn't sure he'd walk out on his own this time. Ten of the last twelve people who had gone missing out there hadn't made it back; the odds were against him, especially if he and his friends were separated.

Something extremely suspicious was going on up there, but the range was too big for any thorough investigating, especially by herself. First things first though, get back to the station and find out if either of the other two men had made it back down. With any luck at least one of them had come down for help and would be able to lead rescuers straight to the others.

The trip back took at least twice as long, as she pulled over multiple times to check on drivers stuck in the ditch and on the side of the road. One thing was for sure, the towing business was booming.

Another hour and two hysterical calls later and the dread had fully engulfed the detective; neither of the other two men had made it home. Three missing people at the same time, six in one week, twenty in the last two months. And all had gone into the National Forest. Something was definitely going on up there.

Thankfully when going to the reservoir, Andrew had been very specific when telling Amy which trailhead he would be heading out from, so at least she knew where to start searching for him.

The department issued SUV had the power and traction to make it up to the trailhead and as she pulled out of the station, she dialed in search and rescue on the radio, asking for a team to meet her up at the Ridgeway trail.

She arrived well before the team, noting the thick fogbank destroyed visibility and getting a helicopter would be impossible. It was also eerily silent as she got out of the car, rubbing her nerves the wrong way as she headed towards Andrew's Chevy in the corner of the parking lot.

A quick glance-over told her what she had expected, it was empty of people and provisions and ice cold. The three men had at least started their trip without incident, whatever happened to them occurred somewhere out on the trail. And ten miles sat between the detective and the reservoir. If they weren't found within the next few days, it was unlikely they ever would be.

It would be several more minutes before the search crew would make it up there, so she went about scouring the parking lot before it was filled with trucks. She didn't think she would find anything useful but it was worth a shot.

As expected, nothing stood out, several old tracks left behind by muddy tires coated the entire area, none of them discernible enough to get a track impression nor appeared fresh enough to be worth trying. This was a popular trail after all, and there were enough turn-off trails for an entire crowd to go out and never run across each other. Finding three men and the reason for their disappearance even with an entire search team was going to be a challenge.

She sighed, her breath thick in the air in front of her, it was too quiet, just her and the two vehicles. She'd heard silence before, enjoyed the absence of ambient noise, but the pure lack of any sort of sound aside from her breathing, the frozen clouds limiting her vision, and the cold numbing her hands was creating an other-worldy feel. It set her nerves on end having her senses robbed so, made her strain to see or hear anything, which only further heightened the feeling of being so utterly isolated. She wished the rescue crew would get their faster; every second was knawing on frayed nerves, forcing a pile of dread and anxiety to build.

There was a very distinct feeling of being watched that made goosebumps rise up across her skin. There was a reason she joined the police force instead of the rangers, she wasn't cut out for the isolated life, it always made her paranoid. She cursed her foolish feelings; nothing was around but her SUV and the pick-up. Still, she couldn't help but glance around just to be sure, a hand resting on her service gun; but of course, nothing was out there; even if there was, the fog hid it from view.

The continuing cold silence was destroying the last of her nerves, which were telling her to get back into the car and wait for the crew there. Just as she was about to give in, the roar of multiple heavy-duty engines wafted through the air, getting louder and louder with every passing second. She let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding as the crews pulled in, filling the parking lot with crunching gravel and chatting men. They loved their job, and they loved the woods, but none of them enjoyed meeting with the detective again. "What do you have for us Blake?" the team leader asked.

"Three men this time Walter," She responded, handing him pictures of each man, "Andrew Wane, Jake Baxter and Brian Spellmen. They went out yesterday and didn't make it back last night."

"And we're just getting called about this?" He raised an eyebrow in question. Usually missing hikers warranted a call at 2 in the morning, not 10:30 the following day.

"All three are experienced and have been late before, their wives were giving them until daybreak to at least call."

The man nodded, passing the names and photos out to his volunteers. "We have a heading?"

"Deadwood Reservoir was their target. They said they were going to take the most direct path." It wasn't much given the number of direct paths that led up to different points of the reservoir, but it was more than they'd had to go on in previous cases. Blake couldn't understand some people's need to tell absolutely no one where they were going. It sure would have made her job and that of the search crew at least a little easier. She couldn't help but wonder how many she might have gotten to in time if she'd had that information.

She shoved those thoughts from the forefront of her mind, there was no telling if anything would have been different and it would drive her mad pondering over it. Walter was organizing his men, could-have-been's wouldn't help them now and three men out there were counting on her to stay completely focused on them.

So she returned to her vehicle, put on her hiking boots, grabbed her backpack and rejoined Walter as his group split into several small teams. "Joining the search again?" He asked once he finished with his commands, it was a redundant question he knew; the answer was always the same.

"Going back to the precinct is pointless and besides, I'll need whatever evidence is found as soon as possible." She patted her pack, which contained enough supplies to secure a small crime scene.

They started up the trail, the teams splitting out into the trees to cover every inch of land, they wouldn't chance missing the men in the brush. Blake walked with Walter's team, listening to every call that came over the walkie-talkies, hoping and praying that something would turn up that could help them find the men, and with a little luck, before it was too late.

For hours they trekked into the mountains, every step higher bringing with it thicker clouds and worse visibility, until it was barely possible to see ten feet ahead. Walter held up his hand, signaling the group to stop. Almost as one every search crew volunteer called out the names of the missing hikers, and then all fell silent as they waited for a response. None came.

Darkness started to creep into the hills, limiting vision to only a few feet, the crew did not falter, merely flicked on their headlamps and continued on. More time passed and Blake wanted to keep going, wanted to push on until the men were found, but like many of the volunteers, exhaustion was taking over and it would still take several hours to make it back down to the parking lot.

More volunteers showed up, having taken a direct shot towards their position and took up the positions of those turning back. Darcy hated that she had to be one of those heading down, but she couldn't go another mile up, all she could do now was wait for a call.

Even taking the straight path it was almost three hours later before the roar of the food truck's generator could be heard. Everyone perked up when they recognized the sound, it meant they were almost there and hot coffee and spam pancakes waited for them.

The detective had never once envisioned herself willingly eating the Stuff-Posing-As-Meat, but after so many hours in the freezing conditions, she wasn't about to turn down hot food.

As the volunteers piled into a few of the trucks and vanished down the road, the silence settled heavily against Darcy again even over the monotonous grumble of the generator. And the nagging feeling of someone watching reared up again, with even more force than before.

She shook her head; exhaustion and stress from the growing pile of unsolved cases was shredding her nerves to bits and making her senses go haywire.

The SUV was as freezing inside as it was outside when she climbed in, the faux-leather seats clinging to every bit of cold that had seeped into the vehicle. It took several minutes of blasting the heat to defrost the windows and her hands enough to back out and head home. As she drove down the windy forest road, headlights doing more to reflect off the fog and blind her than illuminate the road, an unwavering feeling of something just being off settled into her mind and refused to be shaken. Already something big was going on with her missing people, and now something else was so off she could feel it but couldn't identify what it exactly was. It was going to drive her mad if it continued like this.

Sleep evaded her when she was finally able to crawl into bed; even with the physical exhaustion she found herself up at the wee hours of the morning, a cooling cup of forgotten coffee on the counter as she contemplated the wall in front of her.

The entire center of the wall was covered in a large map of the national forest, red pins sticking out of the last known locations of every person that went missing in those woods and wasn't found within the last year. It was a scary number of red dots splattered across the map and she struggled to find some sort of pattern or connection as she added three more pins.

There was nothing, of course, other than they all happened within the forest. She wondered if the surrounding departments had a similar situation.

Perhaps the answer was in the victims, since there were plenty of hikers that made it out without incident. So she looked to each pin, following the lines of string that connected each one to the information of the corresponding victim posted around the map.

So much for not taking work home.

She groaned, rubbing her temples as a headache forced its pounding way behind her eyes. The only thing that remotely stood out was that some of the missing were related to military personnel, but it made up barely half of the pool and so was yet another dead end.

She needed to start from the beginning again, find some sort of pattern, there had to be one.

This-whatever this was-had been going on for nearly eight months, steadily getting worse as time went on. It had all started back on April 10th, when Erika Kyle had taken her horse up for a weekend to herself and never made it back. No one had been able to find anything, not even the helicopter crew. Even the horse didn't turn up, it was like the two had simply dropped off the face of the planet. The rain that had followed the days after had further destroyed all traces of whatever had happened.

Three weeks passed before another hiker turned up missing, and among the many that went up that time of year, it was expected, almost normal, except for the fact that the only trace of him was his car still in the parking lot.

Afterwards it had all gone quiet again, and life and work returned to its routine, though Darcy never gave up on the two, there was very little she could do without any leads. Then, on the second week of June, within three days of each other, two park rangers vanished.

That was when the other officers had suggested a rogue man-eating animal in the woods, but Darcy knew that was impossible, an animal would have left evidence behind, but not a hair or scrap of fabric had ever turned up.

It went on like that all summer, until she thought she'd caught a break in September when a newly disappeared hiker's backpack was found along the riverbank, but scouting and dragging the river had drug up...nothing. And the water had removed all evidence from the pack.

She continued to scowl at the wall, going over everything she knew about every victim, vainly searching for the tiny clue she had to be missing. These last three men made 20 missing since Halloween, 32 since the start, and this was just her jurisdiction. The surrounding departments hadn't responded to her requests to review their unsolved cases, and those that had called back had told her it wasn't worth the trouble, there was nothing for her to find. It irritated her that no one else seemed to realize something was going on or take her seriously when she brought it up. Sure it had taken her until October to realize they had to be connected, but why could no one else see it?

It was then that her phone rang, every ounce of exhaustion from it being four in the morning vanishing as she raced towards it, grabbing her keys and jacket before she'd even answered.

Perhaps now the answers would finally start coming.

============================================XxXxXxXxXxX=====================================================

Prowl was never one to openly complain when he didn't like orders unless they went against logic or tactical advantage, but he was nearing the end of his rope.

Sure he had the patience and experience to wait exceedingly long periods of time, even in Cybertronian terms, but living on a tiny island where the governments wanted him to stay underground when transformed and being stuck on said island with Sideswipe and Sunstreaker was quickly wearing on every circuit in his body, especially with the recent departure of both Ratchet and Ironhide robbing the twins of their usual prank victims. If he had to online to one more human cartoon he was going to lock the two in the brig and destroy the key.

He revved his engine as he stepped out of the hanger and into the bright sunlight, easily adjusting his optics to the harsh lighting that would otherwise white-out his vision. Human wishes be-slagged, he was no one's pet and he would not be locked-up like one.

Continuing his aimless walk, he flipped on the police scanners, simultaneously listening to multiple streams of calls and downloading the reports of the day. He may be stuck on an island in the middle of the ocean, but he could still monitor the outside world. The results proved that crime had stayed at its steady rate from the day before and the days before that. Except in the U.S., where there was another spike in missing person cases. It was small, but it was a growing trend. The number that was noticable was the amount of missing people found, far lower in the last few months than the previous several years' average. Either the human cops were growing more incompetent or whoever was taking these people was very good at hiding them. Prowl suspected a little of both.

Chatter amongst the FBI and Interpol indicated they had noticed too, and they blamed a rise a human trafficking. Prowl had to wonder at the size such an operation had to be in order to hold so many people. Was it possible? And would humans really do such a thing to each other?

Well that was a pointless question, he thought to himself, it was almost a marvel that humans could treat each other so horribly, as objects instead of living beings. But then, Shockwave was very similar, only much worse that an human could ever be capable of imagining. Prowl had made it one of his top priorities on Cybertron to figure out the mad scientist's plans and get several steps ahead. But here with no 'Cons in sight to outsmart and outmaneuver, he had to content himself with further honing his skills by solving the crimes of humanity, starting with one that had some of the top law enforcement officials scratching their heads.

But he couldn't very well do any of that stuck on this Primus-forsaken hunk of sand they expected him to call home.

He walked out onto the blacktop of one of the runways, looking out at the sun setting over the water, it certainly wasn't Cybertron, but it was decent enough at times. At least when he was off the island.

NEST bases were being set up around the world, Autobots already stationed at each to help with the construction and yet here he stood, a useless ornament in the middle of the ocean, the least they could do was send him to the mainland to assist law enforcement personnel.

The doors on his back twitched as yet another homicide report came in. Humans were such a destructive race, at their current rate they would wipe themselves out within a few thousand years.

He let out an irritated vent, blasting the maddening sand out of his systems. While logic dictated humans were barely worth protecting when they continued to slaughter each other, Prowl knew they were still better off. After all, though they had the ability to do so, the humans hadn't completely destroyed their planet through war. And there were the few humans who the tactician could tolerate, those who fought to uphold law and order in the rather barbaric cities.

A tinkering in his gears made him vent again, blasting out a little red crab from its hiding place. Oh yes, he really hated this island.

* * *

_And that's it for now! I've messed with this chapter so many times and I still don't like Amy's part that much, mostly because I have no idea how that kind of conversation would go and it just wouldn't flow properly for me :P Oh well! I like the next chapter a lot more, and the one after even more than that :)_

_Please drop a review and let me know what you think! Feedback keeps me writing more and faster! :)_

_Next time on NRFTW: Darcy Blake answers the phone and Prowl hates on beurocratic procedures_

**~Black Wolf-Dog~**


	3. A Piece of the Puzzle

**Black** **Wolf-Dog: **_Hope you all had a wonderful New Year and here's good luck to all of you to stick to those resolutions! And now school is starting again this week (And playoffs this weekend, GO SEAHAWKS!). Anyways, I do hope to stick with updating once a week after classes start but we'll have to see how much homework the professors decide to give me._

_About the previous chapter...Primus forgive me for all those spelling mistakes! You never quite realize how much you depend on Word's spell check until you don't have it anymore :P I shall try to be more thorough when I edit from now on...and hopefully I can get Word back _

**TMWolf: **_To my wonderfully amazing friend, you brighten my days and I promise to respond to all those messages tonight or tomorrow!__  
_

**Frog1**: _Thanks for reviewing again! Ah, unfortunately you will have to wait just a little bit for these two to meet, but not too long I promise!_

_And here's to Chapter 3 of NRFTW. Enjoy!_

* * *

_It is well for the heart to be naive and the mind not to be. ~Anatole France_

**December 30, 4:03am**

"Blake," The detective answered, holding her breath as clutched the phone, waiting for the news she desperately hoped was coming.

"It's Walter; we found one of your boys. He's on his way to the hospital right now." She was silent as the shock of his words hit her like a freight train. They found one of them, and he was alive. Finally. "Detective," There was a weight in his voice that warned her that this good news did not come without a cost, "He was in rough shape when we found him."

Walter had been in search and rescue for over 20 years, rough shape was not a warning he gave lightly, "Do you know who he is?" She asked once she got past her initial euphoria.

"No, he was unconscious when we found him, the ambulance just left so if you leave no you can probably beat them to the hospital."

"Thanks." She didn't much care where the phone ended up after she ended the call and tossed it in the general direction of the couch, ducking out the door and jogging for the SUV. A quick spray of defroster and she was tearing out of the driveway, lights and sirens blasting, one thought racing through her mind. There was a survivor.

By some miracle she made it to the hospital without losing traction and skid into the parking lot less than 20 seconds before the ambulance. Pulling her badge around her neck, she ran towards the emergency entrance as the aid car's back doors flew open, "Can you ID Detective?" one of the doctors asked the second she reached them. Jogging alongside the stretcher, she looked to see who it was, but it was difficult to make an ID. Only his face was visible, coated in blood and mangled beyond repair. It made her stomach clench when she finally recognized a small tattoo on his neck.

"It's Andrew Wane."

The wounded man gasped, attempting to sit up as he came back into consciousness, the doctors pushed him back down, but he continued to look wildly about until he spotted Darcy. A shredded hand latched onto her arm, pulling her closer, his body shaking in almost violent tremors, "Must...must..." his voice was ragged and choked, and he went into a coughing fit that sprayed blood everywhere.

"I'm here Andrew, must what? What happened?"

"Must...monst..." he gurgled, falling back against the gurney and releasing his hold on the detective.

"B.P.'s falling!" One of the nurses shouted, another pulled Darcy away, stopping her as her friend's husband was rushed to the emergency room and out of her sight.

Must? Monst? What was he talking about? She shook her head, she couldn't dwell on his words just yet, she had a call to make first.

"Darcy? Did you find him? Is he okay? What happened? Where is he?" Amy rambled the second she answered, and it made Blake feel even worse about the news she had to give, but at the moment it was better than what she had for the other wives.

"We found him Amy, we're at the hospital."

"I'm on my way." She responded immediately, hanging up before Darcy could offer to have an officer pick her up.

The detective sighed, bringing her hand up to rub her temples but pausing the second she caught sight of it, it was coated in Andrew's blood. Her stomach rolled as she headed towards the bathroom. She had seen horrible things doing this job, but nothing compared to when it was someone she knew.

Tearing her jacket off, she stuffed it into one of the sinks, blasting the cold water in an attempt to clean some of the blood off of it. The mirror revealed the splatter that had hit her cheek; using the back of her hand, she tried to clean it off, smearing it around and turning the sink and her skin red.

It was a good ten minutes before she finally got her skin cleared and worked her jacket through the water, until it was as good as it was going to get at the moment.

Exiting the bathroom, she stopped one of the nurses coming out of the emergency room doors, "What's going on with Andrew Wane?" He had to make it, she couldn't break that kind of news to her friend.

The nurse took a moment to spot the badge still hanging from her neck before answering, "He's in critical condition right now; the doctors rushed him into surgery."

Darcy nodded, sighing as she returned to the lobby, tossing the wet coat over one of the seats and collapsing into the seat next to it. Dropping her head into her hands, she waited for Amy to walk through the doors. She didn't wait long before the woman burst in, rushing over to her. "Where is he?"

"He's in surgery right now Amy, we're going to have to wait." She hated seeing the vulnerability and brokenness in Amy's eyes. Tears were streaming down her cheeks; it was an expression she had seen too many times.

"You had to have seen him, how is he? Why does he need surgery? What happened to him!?" Amy was breaking down, and she had every right to, the detective didn't have a good answer for her.

She could tell the truth, be honest and say he was gravely injured, or she could lie, say she hadn't come in time, hadn't seen him, didn't know what his condition was. She couldn't lie to her, but she couldn't bring herself to tell her friend how bad it was. "He's hurt pretty bad, but these are the best surgeons in the city, they'll fix him up." She prayed it was true, he had to pull through.

Together they waited; Amy's sobs the only sound that passed between them. It felt like forever, like every second took hours to pass, like time itself had nearly stopped, slowing to a crawl, to dragging out the pain of not-knowing for as long as possible.

"Andrew? Where's my baby?!" Darcy recognized the older woman as his mother as she came running through the doors, latching onto Amy. The two clung to each other, attempting to make sense of everything that was going on, different emotions converging onto their faces at once; grief, worry, relief, hope. Darcy saw it and could only hope the doctor would bring good news.

"Is there anyone here for Mr. Wane?" a surgeon called as he entered the room some hours later, mother and wife lurched up, every ounce of them clinging to hope. The detective hung back, she recognized his reservation and closed her eyes before he'd even uttered the words. "I'm so sorry, we did everything we could."

There was nothing else he could say as the two woman burst into tears and wails.

Darcy took a deep breath, steadying herself and getting down to business, she owed it to all of them to figure out what happened to him. "What happened doc?" She asked once she had pulled him out of earshot of the two grieving women.

He sighed, glancing down at the charts in his hand, "Honestly I was hoping you could tell me. Thirty-four broken bones, a punctured lung, thirteen lacerations and some kind of burn on 27% of his body."

"Could an animal have done all that?" The sheer extent of the damage made her think otherwise, especially since he was found alive, but she had to cover all of her bases.

"It's possible, but I've never seen an animal do damage like that, and it wouldn't explain the burns."

"Fire?" It would explain the burns, possibly the lacerations if he'd fallen on sharp branches.

He shook his head, "No fire, those burns were caused by a chemical."

Chemical burns? That wasn't an injury one got when they stayed out in the woods overnight, "What kind of chemical?" If the doctor could identify what caused the burns than it might give her a lead, since many compounds were kept track of, even regulated when it came to the toxic or corrosive mixtures.

He dashed all of those hopes when he shook his head, "I've never dealt with this chemical before, whatever it is, it's not something common or natural."

Great, so someone was out there making synthetic chemicals and burning people with them. But why hikers? And why in the forest? A serial killer would have a better chance of finding victims in the city. A trafficking ring maybe? They were known for covering their tracks well, and they would have the funds to get their hands on a new chemical weapon. Perhaps they were testing it?

But that still didn't add all up. Traffickers need people alive for their business, killing their victims wouldn't do them any good. Unless these traffickers were in the business of torture. It made her sick to know Andrew suffered, and it was possible so had all of her other missing people.

Trafficking wasn't her specialty, but she'd find the bastards that were responsible for this and bring them down, even if her crusade had to be done herself. With any luck though, she'd have the rest of her department behind her. "I'll need a full autopsy as soon as possible; I need to know exactly what happened to him."

The doctor nodded, "Whoever did this used a lot of force; you find who's responsible detective, I don't want another patient like that on my table."

She nodded, "I plan to." He moved on, making an attempt to console and answer some of the widow's questions. Amy had her mother-in-law there with her, and as much as Darcy wanted to stay and comfort her friend, she knew the greatest comfort would be solving this case, so after giving her friend a comforting hug, she walked out of the hospital doors and went to work.

When she pulled into the station, the Chief's car was already out front. Perfect, just the man she wanted to see. While she didn't have much experience with the man in charge, she knew he desired justice just as much as she did, so she didn't foresee any problem getting his backing.

"Chief?" She knocked on the open door, not entering the office as he finished his phone call.

"What do you need detective?" He asked once he hung up, motioning her in.

"We found Andrew Wane." She stated as she approached his desk, taking the offered seat.

"So I heard, how is he?"

"He died on the table. Sir, we need to shut down the park and issue a statement to the media."

The Chief of Police dropped the pen in his hand, finally turning his complete and full attention to his department's youngest detective, "What kind of statement are you talking about Blake?"

She knew he had to word it carefully; no one wanted to cause unnecessary panic, so the kind of statement she had in mind was issued only when there was no other option. She knew that was the case right now. "The public needs to be warned about what is happening in the national forest, and that they need to stay out of it until we get this thing resolved."

"And what proof do you have that this statement is worth the panic?"

She knew this was coming, he'd be an unfit chief if he didn't cover all of his own bases, "Thirty-two people have gone missing in the last eight months, Andrew's the first any viable trace has been found of."

"So you're saying people are just...disappearing up there? Are you sure they aren't just getting lost? Hikers go missing all the time, that doesn't warrant shutting down a national park."

Darcy shook her head, "No, people aren't just going missing, they're dropping off the face of the planet! If they were just getting lost then search and rescue would have found them. And Andrew's injuries were not an accident, someone did that to him. He had chemical burns Chief, someone or some group is out there taking people and torturing them. We need to shut down the park until we close this case."

The chief sighed, leaning back in his seat and interlacing his fingers, suddenly Darcy didn't feel so confident in acquiring his help.

"Are you sure it wasn't the two men who went up with Mr. Wane that did that to him?"

"No! There is no way either of them did this, the chemical was synthetic, neither of them had degrees in chemistry and this has been going on for a lot longer than those two have been in town."

He still looked skeptical, "How do you know these cases are even related? It's been a colder year, more people are going into the hills; they're probably getting lost in the growing snow pack and bad visibility." He really wasn't getting it was he? He couldn't see that people were getting hurt and would continue to do so until the culprit was caught or they closed the mountains.

"They are connected Chief, all of the M.O.'s have been the same, one person or group is responsible for all of these cases. We have to close the park."

"Look detective," He leaned forward in his seat, casting a pitying look her way, "I know you're young, you want that big case and you want to be able to explain all these missing people, but sometimes we get those cases we just have to let go. There is no need to cause mass panic by telling people not to go into the woods."

She barely knew him personally, but as the Chief of Police she had expected better than this, "I've been doing this for over a year, I know the difference between looking for a big case and having one. Something is going on up there and people are disappearing because of it."

He cut her off before she could continue, "People disappear in the mountains all the time, especially in winter."

"Not twenty people in two months!" She stood up, slamming her hand down on his desk, currently uncaring that this was her boss, "The public needs to be warned and I need access to dogs and other departments. If I had the resources I could solve this thing."

"Detective!" The sharpness of his tone indicated she may have just crossed a line, "I've heard enough! It's been a harsh winter; people are losing themselves in the snow. Now you've had your search and rescue for the allotted times, accept that you can't find everyone and get to work on the cases you can solve."

"But Chief..."

"Detective, not another word about it."

"But if I could just collaborate with our neighboring departments, call in outside help..."

"Contacting outside sources gets leaked to the press and causes mass panic. You are a missing persons detective, not homicide, not conspiracies. You will work your cases by the book and keep those ridiculous theories to yourself or you may just find yourself writing speeding tickets for the foreseeable future. Do I make myself clear?"

She wanted to argue, tell him he was an idiot for ignoring the obvious, but the hard set of his face told her he was serious about his threat, "Crystal, Sir." She clenched her jaw, turning on her heel and leaving his office. He was a fool and his inability to see what was right in front of his face was going to get people killed.

She dropped into her chair with a huff, gaining the attention of the homicide detective across from her. John sighed, "Look Darcy, I know you want to find these people. But you can't take them all personally, you invest too much of yourself into them and it's going to bite you in the ass."

Blake looked up, throwing an accusing glare towards him, "Are you suggesting I stop caring?" And here she was thinking the one person she could count on to have her back was the man who trained her. Guess she thought wrong.

"I'm not saying you should stop caring and you know that." He snapped back, reminding her that yes, he did actually know her and how she functioned.

Sighing, she dropped her head into her hands, drooping her shoulders and regretting her previous thoughts, "I'm sorry John, it's just...those people are counting on me to find them and every lead just ends in a dead end. I know something is going on up there that we need to stop; I know people won't stop disappearing until we do but damn it all I don't know what to do!"

She wanted more than anything for him to straight out tell her what she needed to do, but that was impossible, he didn't have any foresight into her case, and he had his hands full with his own cases. He was quiet for a moment as he regarded her, "Your problem Darcy, is that you have no evidence that proves something is going on up there, other than a string of missing people and one deceased victim that took your leads with him."

"Isn't that evidence enough?" She pulled herself from her drooped position, resting her arms onto the desk, "I can't find anything else without more manpower but no one seems to believe me. You believe me don't you?"

If he didn't...if he doubted her theories that all the evidence had pointed her to, then maybe this wasn't the job for her. He didn't say anything for several seconds before answering her question with his own, "What does your gut say?"

She didn't hesitate, "That something far bigger than either of us have ever dealt with is going on in those mountains."

He nodded once. "Always follow your gut."

* * *

This entire procedure was ridiculous and beyond useless. All Prowl wanted to do was leave to the mainland to look into the rise in human crimes and all he needed was Prime's approval and that should be enough. But no, the humans demanded he go through their chain of command as well, and for that he had to give them viable evidence and reason to warrant flying him across the oceans, it had to be 'cost effective' they said. He rumbled to himself as he marched out of the command center, not only was the paperwork involved tedious and useless (and decidedly _not_ cost effective), it delayed everything for unreasonable amounts of time.

He concluded the only reason the humans hadn't started World War III yet was because the idea was tied up in all the bureaucratic red tape. Did they not realize that while the Decepticons weren't actively showing themselves that the war wasn't over? And in war soldiers and commanders had to be prepared to act at a moment's notice, not sit down and fill out the proper paperwork.

Prowl continued to rev his engine irritably, Optimus had given him the go-ahead as long as NEST officials cleared it, but the commanders had refused his request, claiming their wasn't evidence to support a need for Autobot backup on a case humans had been dealing with for 'far longer than he'd been on Earth'. It wasn't worth the fuel they said, not when Ironhide had been stationed at the Hoover Dam to assist in converting it into a base.

Ironhide was no tactician or enforcer! He know about weapons not investigating crimes! No, unless a Decepticon came charging in, Ironhide was of little use to the human law enforcement, and in extent, to Prowl at the moment.

He was stuck on this pitiful island until the human commanders deemed it necessary for Autobot intervention, in which it would already be too late and the advantage would no longer be with them.

Sometimes he disliked being right all the time.

He glanced up as a plane blasted overhead towards the runway, Galloway had arrived. Yet another reason he had been denied leave, the politician was coming and command didn't want the man to deem any of their missions wastes of time and money.

Prowl revved, they refused him a ride off because loss of human life wasn't necessary enough, and yet the prick politician was flown in in a jet that cost more than a C-17 would to shuttle him at least four times. It was a wonder the human governments accomplished anything.

* * *

It showed up on every law enforcement frequency and headline in the world; Interpol, with the assistance of the United States' CIA and FBI, had discovered and raided an international human trafficking ring. Eighty-seven people were arrested. Over three hundred victims found locked in cages; starving, dehydrated, worse-for-wear, but alive. According to the survivors, one hundred seventeen were not so lucky, their bodies found in shallow graves several miles from the main facility.

Darcy flipped through the report that had been sent to every department in the country, looking through the long list of names of the people found, searching for a name she could recognize.

There were none. Not a single one.

She sighed as she scrolled back to the top of the page and started going through the list a third time, hoping somehow a name would appear that she would know, so that she would have news for at least one family.

Interpol claimed they had found the entire operation, that all of the vicitims had been identified. If that was true then how was it possible that not one of her missing were on that list?

"Any luck?" John asked as he sat at his desk, luke-warm coffee in hand.

Irritated, she harshly slammed on the mouse to exit out of the report, "None whatsoever."

He frowned, "That can't be right, 326 identified and not one is yours? You sure you checked every name?"

"Positive John, of my thirty-two, not one of them was recovered." She huffed, rubbing her temples, another possible lead dashed.

He shrugged, "Your's could be a sub-ring, or a different one all-together." He was trying to be helpful, but it wasn't working.

"Interpol claims they got the entire ring."

"Interpol claims a lot of things these days." He had a point there, but it wasn't enough.

"Rings don't compete with each other, they work together to keep business booming. If it's a ring, it's one that's managed to stay off of the grid, which means they aren't doing any active trading." She frowned, "What if it's not a trafficking ring?"

John raised an eyebrow, "Go on."

"Andrew had burns, so what if these people are being taken by some in-house terrorist group whose experimenting with chemical weapons?" Alright, she had to admit that sounded much more reasonable in her head, but she was grasping in the dark at this point.

"This is Idaho Blake, not New York."

"I know." She dropped her head into her hands again, the shear lack of anything concrete was destroying every fiber of patience she had left. "I need help, I need outside help. If not the media than someone else."

"You know the rules Darcy, contacting outside sources requires the Chief's sign off, and he's not about to give it to you without some real evidence to back your theories."

"I know." She knew the rules, knew them well, but she wasn't sure how much longer she could take following the book when it was getting her nowhere.

* * *

_So...I did a little researching, scary fact, 2,300 people go missing everyday in the US. Most are runaway juveniles and senior citizens. But if they were all split up equally (which of course, they aren't), that's about 40-ish people that go missing per state per day. Freaky stuff man, freaky stuff!_

_Anyways, so I've taken several Criminal Justice classes so I know the gist of how cops work, of course I will be ignoring certain aspects in order to keep the story moving but I try to keep it as realistically accurate as possible._

_Please drop a review and let me know what you think, your favorite parts, your least favorite parts or what you hope to see happen in this story! Help keep me inspired! :)_

_Next time on NRFTW: Darcy gets another case, a rogue Police cruiser makes an appearance and Prowl gets to say "I told you so."_

**_~Black Wolf-Dog~_**


	4. I Told You So

**Black Wolf-Dog: **_I'm back! And classes have officially gotten into full swing, yuck. Also my sister's engagement party is coming up and I'm her Maid of Honor so things will be busy, I'm still hoping to get an update a week or at least every other week. And I've decided fanfic hates the page breaks, I swear it gives me issues with them every time, so I'm just manually putting them in now :P_

_**TMWolf: **As always, you are my inspiration for continuing this story!  
_

_**LucasVN: **I humbly thank you for your kind words! I try to make the stories as interesting for the readers as they are for me, so I'm glad this has caught your attention! Ah yes, Prowl does get the short stick, but he will get his way eventually, he's good at that ;) I'm so glad you approve of my plan! I understand why the TV shows and PG-13 movies tone down the evilness, but this is fanfic, I can fully develop and exploit their true manipulative and sadistic nature :)  
_

_Now enjoy the next chapter of NRFTW!_

_XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX__  
_

_Things are not always what they seem; the first appearance deceives many; the intelligence of a few perceives what has been carefully hidden ~Phaedrus_

For five days the search crews continued to scour the mountains for any trace of the other two men. Finding Andrew had invigorated them, made them more determined. But that determination and vigor wore down as day after day passed and not a hair of them was found. And every day the two men's wives would call the detective and ask for news, and every day she had to let them down.

Darcy had hoped deciphering Andrew's words would give her some clue or answer. But 'Must' and 'Monst' weren't giving her anything. Must do what? Save the other two men? She would without hesitating if only she knew where to look for them. And what was a monst? A monster? But that didn't tell her anything either; perhaps a bear or some other animal did this? But this was Andrew, he had encounter stories for pretty much every animal in the north, he wouldn't call them monsters. So what? An animal that wasn't common or know about? What was he talking about, Bigfoot?

The detective snorted at her own thoughts, she was investigating a real crime in the real world, this wasn't some kind of sci-fi movie.

She sighed, head pounding as she tried and failed to figure out what must and monster were possibly supposed to mean and why they were so important as to be his last words.

It was January 17th that finally broke the proverbial camel's back.

"Blake, head down to the Ranger Station on 21st, they have a case for you." The chief greeted her as he walked passed her desk. She bit her tongue, fighting back the temptation to tell him that if it was another missing, she told him so.

But she pushed away from her desk without a word and headed out to the station as the dark and dreary clouds belayed the midday time. Maybe, just maybe, the rangers' case was involved with one of her's; perhaps they had found one of her missing. It was enough to give her a small flash of hope.

The atmosphere of the ranger station when she walked in was enough to dash all of that hope. Whatever they had for her wasn't something that was about to make her job any easier.

"Detective Blake?" A middle-aged man stepped through the crowd of rangers, "Kallen Goodman, let's talk in my office."

Leading her through the throng of somber people, he let out a heavy sigh the second they walked into the office and closed the door.

"What do you have for me Mr. Goodman?" She asked as gently as possible. Instead of answering right away, he moved to his desk, grabbing a small file folder and handing it over to her.

"One of my rangers missed his check-in. Tom Felton." She flipped the file open, taking in the photograph of the young, happy man as her heart sank to the deepest recesses of her gut. "He went up to investigate a bad smell some hikers have been reporting. He was only supposed to be up there for a week, it's been two."

Darcy raised her eyebrows at the man. "He's been missing for a full week?"

Goodman nodded, "At first we didn't think much of it, Tom's always been the sort to stay out an extra day or two. But after four days we realized something was wrong. We tried raising him on the radio and everyone has spent the last three days looking for him. When we couldn't find him last night I knew I had to call you."

Blake nodded as she digested the information, another man was missing, the rangers had done the ground search, and the M.O. was exactly the same as the others. "Did you find his vehicle?"

If this was connected then finding his car wouldn't do much good, but there was always the off-chance there was something.

"Yeah, at the end of an old logging road two miles from where he was supposed to head out from. We didn't touch it."

She frowned as she made a quick note of it on the file. Either Tom had discovered something else...or his car had been moved. It would be a huge break in M.O. and a possible break in the case. "Did he report the source of the smell?"

Kallen shook his head, "No, and I haven't sent anyone else after it since he disappeared. Plus the cold is dampening the smell anyways. It was probably just an animal carcass; those things smell to high-heaven, especially if the animal was sick. That's what these things always turn out to be."

"Where exactly was this smell located?" She asked, it was probably a coincidence, but then, she was a detective, she couldn't believe in coincidences. Perhaps the source of this smell was related.

Kallen shrugged, "Hard to tell, we had reports of it on several trails surrounding this area." He grabbed a red pen, circling a section of land on the map in Tom's file. It covered several acres of land, mostly all of it inaccessible to vehicles.

The two spent the next hour going over all of the necessary details, until Darcy had gleaned as much information as she could.

"Detective," Goodman stopped her as she moved to leave, "Find our boy." There was a pleading in his voice, the rangers were a brotherhood, a loss would affect them all. She didn't want to give false hope, or make a promise she couldn't keep, but she couldn't give him nothing.

"I'll do my best." It was all she could promise and she hated it. She wanted to be able to swear she would find him, catch whoever was responsible and end it once and for all, but she couldn't, not alone. It was time to call in outside help.

_XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX_

Ivan knew those last few shots were a bad idea, knew they would come back to bite him, and yet he had tossed them back anyways. The consequence of such a decision was currently beating away at his skull and causing the noon sun to feel like a thousand sharp needles. And instead of sleeping away this hangover like he so desperately wanted to, he was out on the road, dragging himself back home, where he knew his aunt would be waiting for him. The thought alone was almost enough to make him turn around, but keeping her waiting would only prolong and enhance her wrath. The only silver lining was his uncle being deployed, which meant he'd only get a tongue lashing instead of additional hours of chores.

He swore he would never drink again, just like he did the last time...and the time before that. Well, this time he was going to stick to it. No more drinking, no more crazy parties. Never again. Well...maybe if Angie was going to be there...she was hot.

Red and blue lit up his rearview mirror. Cursing, he pulled over, hoping the cop would continue on his way. No luck. The cruiser pulled in right behind him, lights and siren still going obnoxiously. Ivan couldn't believe his luck today, coming home hours late with a hangover was one thing, getting a ticket or having to get picked up from jail was completely different. Aunt Marie was going to kill him.

It seemed to take a millennium for the cop to get out of his car, but when he finally did walk up to the window, what he said was not what Ivan had been expecting. "Ivan Burke? I need you to come with me; it's about your uncle."

In an instant the pounding headache was no longer the center of his focus. "What?"

"Please come with me, I'll explain everything on the way." Ivan didn't hesitate, ripping off the seat belt, he hurried out of the car, following the officer to his cruiser. His thoughts filled with dread as scenarios ran rampant through his mind. What happened to his uncle? He knew the military was dangerous, especially since his uncle joined an elite unit, but what happened to him that warranted an officer tracking down and picking his nephew?

Ivan hardly blinked as he climbed into the back of the cruiser, wondering if someone else was picking up Aunt Marie. Oh Lord, she was going to be a wreck. He cursed himself again for going out last night. He should have stayed home; she would need him there when the officer knocked on her door.

The vents of the idling cruiser sputtered as the door clicked shut. Ivan ignored them as he impatiently waited for the officer to return to the driver's seat and take him to his uncle. But the officer didn't move from his spot outside, didn't even twitch as the vents sputtered again, blasting full force.

Smoke poured in, thick and white, it effectively snapped Ivan into a different worry.

"Hey!" He banged on the window, trying and failing to get the door open as he coughed on the toxic air. It filled his lungs, making the world spin and his stomach roll. All his strength couldn't budge the window or the door and every second robbed more of his energy. Throat burning, he tried yelling again, but whatever was in the smoke made him choke. Hand falling limp against the glass, he fought to keep the creeping darkness at bay; but his fight was in vain as his body collapsed onto the seat.

As the man stopped moving, the vents quickly reversed flow and expelled the gas. Rolling forward, the cruiser nudged the empty car off the side of the road and down into the ditch ten feet below.

_XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX_

The Police Interceptor blared its sirens and revved its engine as it blasted down the highway, the driver unconcerned, one hand barely resting on the steering wheel. Civilians pulled over to allow the speeding car to pass and those too slow were bumped and rammed out of the way.

The Mustang continued on, almost oblivious to every metal obstacle it rammed through, leaving a trail of dents, broken glass and totaled cars in its wake, while the gleaming muscle car remained unscathed.

A helicopter screamed overhead as it followed the rampaging police car, the news crew hardly believing what they were seeing as they filmed it and broadcasted it live. An officer finally snapped or a stolen cruiser? It was a headline the reports were going with, since no one could figure out who owned the car or get an image of who was driving.

State Patrol quickly filled in behind, but their engines were no match for the Mustang, who left them in the dust to clean up the smoking mess it left behind.

Road blocks were set up and spikes laid out several miles down the road, the Mustang had nowhere else to go; this crazy driving spree was about to be over and the news crew in the helicopter would be the first to get the story. The bird flew ahead of the Mustang, hanging over the road block and waiting for the inevitable conclusion.

The muscle car didn't slow down, didn't veer from course, it was as if the driver didn't see the road block in front of him, or didn't care. The cameraman in the air wondered if he was about to watch a suicide by car crash and pondered if perhaps he could get an award for such footage, or at the very least a promotion.

Seconds ticked by as the speeding police car barreled toward the spikes, engine roaring as it gained speed. Less than a mile now, it would be only seconds and it would all be over.

Still the car refused to slow, and the cops at the road block quickly vacated the blacktop and into the surrounding trees, there was no telling where the runaway Mustang would flip and end up, better safe behind a thousand year-old tree than their light-weight vehicles.

Quarter of a mile and the Mustang screamed on, the driver still uncaring. The spikes were directly ahead and he made no attempt to miss them or slow down. Instead the engine revved again and the car sped up even _more_, going faster than any vehicle had a right too.

It was over in less time it took to blink. The Mustang hit the spikes, flung them into the air and continued undeterred through the barricade, throwing the cars into the trees and lifting one completely off the ground as it struck broadside. By the time the air-borne cruiser hit the ground and stopped rolling, the muscle car was already down the road and nearly out of sight.

The news helicopter tried to keep up with the action, but with another roar of mighty horses, the muscle car left the bird behind and disappeared.

_XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX_

Prowl revved as he watched the news footage for a second time, this time in the presence of both Prime and NEST officials on the video line. Here was the proof they had wanted, and he _had_ told them so. It was a miracle no one was killed, but sixteen people were in the hospital and it all could have been prevented if they had just listened to him.

"You're sure this is a Decepticon?" One of the NEST commanders Prowl hadn't cared to learn the name of asked.

The tactician had to try very hard to remain respectful like Optimus ordered, but honestly, these humans were idiots. "It's Barricade, no _human_ car is immune to spikes and can breach 230 miles an hour."

General Morshower—one of the few capable of sense and logic and the only one of NEST Command Prowl didn't completely despise—spoke up before the others could, "If Prowl says he's a 'Con, then I'm inclined to believe him. Ironhide is only a few states away; if Optimus Prime agrees, I'll send word to put him in pursuit."

Prowl snorted, but stayed silent this time as Optimus spoke up, "While Ironhide is a formidable warrior, Barricade possesses a speed he does not. I believe it would be best to send another who could match that speed."

The NEST commanders and liaisons muttered briefly to each other before one asked, "You're suggesting we sent Sideswipe and Sunstreaker instead? Neither has shown much consideration for our laws."

Prowl would have rolled his optics if he was prone to such human habits, but again stayed quiet as Optimus continued, "Sideswipe and Sunstreaker will learn," that was doubtful, "But they are already on their way to their post in Italy..."

"Bumblebee then." Another interrupted.

Prowl vented, really now, the answer was right in front of their faces, literally. "Bumblebee already has his commitment to Sam and is currently on the other side of the country with him."

Another official jumped in before Prime could continue, "Then who do you suggest we send to take care of this if all of your fast Autobots are _busy_?"

Prowl scrutinized the screen, recognizing the one who spoke as one often seen in the presence of Galloway. Useless human.

"Prowl would be the best option, he has dealt with Barricade in the past and knows his tricks, his alternative mode may also help rectify some of the damage Barricade has done."

"Or worsen it." Prowl revved, he knew that voice anywhere; Theodore Galloway had arrived and was speaking up as he walked onto the catwalk between the Autobots and the video screen. "And if he's dealt with the Decepticon in the past, why is he still alive then? Surely a tactician could outsmart a scout."

Prowl gunned his engine, but Optimus placed a hand on his shoulder before he could speak.

"And how do we know this is an unprovoked attack?" The liaison continued, "He's the one who was begging to leave Diego Garcia just days ago." He thrust his hand towards Prowl, though stayed facing the officials on screen as the tactician's rumbling went a pitch deeper, "The timing is just a little too good."

It was only the continued presence of Optimus' hand that stopped Prowl from stepping forward and showing the politician just what he thought about what he was insinuating.

"None of my Autobots would purposefully endanger human life and encourage Decepticon destruction for any reason." Prime's voice had a hard edge to it, a clear warning that that kind of accusation would not be tolerated.

"That's enough Galloway." Morshower cut in before the liaison to the White House could continue, "I'll authorize a small operation. Prowl, you will fly out A.S.A.P. and meet up with Ironhide. I want this quick and quiet."

The feed cut before Galloway could say anything else and the group dispersed. Prowl got his official orders from Prime—they didn't actually expect him to listen to a human's orders—and headed out to the runway.

Twenty minutes later the C-17 was ready and Prowl rolled up the ramp, parking smack center in the cargo bay. While flying didn't much bother him, it was the thought of being trapped in a large metal contraption being flown by _humans_, a naturally grounded species, that made him impatient for the flight to be over. So like every other time he'd been flown on the human's plane, he hacked the plane's systems and settled into a recharge as the plane took off, part of his processor going over the system data and ready to alert the rest of him if any anomaly turned up.

It was a small blessing that nothing substantial happened during the flight, and the second the ramp lowered and his tires hit the pavement he was off, speeding towards the direction Barricade had last been seen in. At the same time he sent out a message to Ironhide to get moving, he would catch up.

Blasting his sirens, he was pleased by how quickly the humans got out of his way, though briefly wondered how much of that was due to respect or fear of a Mustang repeat.

It took less than a half hour to catch up to Ironhide and the NEST soldiers, neither were exceptionally fast though Prowl knew even the weapons specialist could leave the Earth vehicles in the dust. Why the humans insisted on coming and why Prime allowed it wasn't logical, but if there was one thing he had learned on this rock, it was that humans rarely followed logic.

Now on the same path Barricade had taken, Prowl could pick up the faint traces of his signal. No matter how shielded he may currently be, a Cybertronian would always leave a temporary trail, it was just up to those with the correct sensors to find and follow it.

Prowl had such sensors, though not as powerful as Hound's, he was acquainted enough with Barricade's signal that he could pick up and identify it.

But even to his sensors the trail was fading fast and they would lose it soon at this pace.

_"Prime's orders that we stay with the humans."_ Ironhide responded over the comm. link when the tactician told him such.

"_Then stay with the humans." _He revved, and with that he blasted down the road, leaving the surprised humans and a not-so-shocked Ironhide behind.

Evidence of Barricade's presence was still scattered all over the roadway. While most of the still-functioning cars had left, black skid marks, broken glass and totaled vehicles pointed the way he had gone. But soon the evident damage became less and less, until the tactician could only follow the 'Con's trail. But even moving as fast as he possibly could through the traffic, the lingering signal was too old and fading far too fast for Prowl's liking.

Eventually, well over fifty miles ahead of Ironhide, he skid to a halt on the side of the road, letting out a Cybertronian curse as the signal faded well beyond his ability to track. The time it had taken to get him there from Diego Garcia had been too long. The Decepticon speedster had given him the slip and left no clues as to where he was heading.

_"Take the humans back to the base, he's gone."_ Cutting off the line, Prowl sent off a data burst to Prime on what had happened, _"Permission to stay behind to follow a lead?"_

It didn't matter to him that the lead Prime may think he was following had to do with the Decepticon when it didn't. He wasn't about to divulge information that could possibly get him anything less than the affirmative he needed.

_"Granted."_

He got it.

With that taken care of, Prowl gunned back onto the road, skidding off of the highway and onto the interstate. It was time to head north and start a little investigating of his own.

_XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX_

Darcy knew it would be the death sentence on her career; the second the case was closed—if she was lucky—she'd be out of a job. But she couldn't sit by and wait for the chief to pull his head out of his ass and see what was going on. Not if it meant more people had to suffer.

She would be the one to make the call for help, career be-damned they needed the FBI's help, even if she was the only one who accepted that fact.

Glancing around the bullpen, she quickly looked up the number for the field office in the state, jotting it down on a post-it before grabbing her jacket; no way could she make that call from inside the building, she couldn't afford the chance of having someone interfere.

The call took less than ten minutes, all she had to do was report the basics of what was going on and the man on the other end assured that an agent would be sent out to assist in any way possible.

She returned to her desk afterwards, impatiently bouncing her leg as she glanced out the windows, looking for a government-issued vehicle that didn't normally belong. Darcy knew there was no way the agent could arrive so soon, but she couldn't help but look every few seconds. Help was finally coming.

"Everything alright Blake?" John asked as he packed up his things, retirement was just two days away for him.

"Everything's fine, just anxious to get a useful lead on this case." She answered, she couldn't tell him about the call she just made when the agent hadn't arrive yet.

"Don't worry Darcy, something will turn up. You'll be fine as long as you cool that hot head of yours and don't do anything stupid." She stiffened slightly as she glanced towards the window again, wondering what he would classify as 'stupid'.

John had been an officer of the law for a long time and he had been Blake's partner long enough to easily read her micro-expressions. With a sigh, he leaned back into his seat, "What did you do?"

"I called in a little help, some fresh eyes might find something I can't." She wouldn't look him in the eye, instead she focused her attention on the paper in front of her and repeated glances to the parking lot.

"What kind of help?" The look on his face stated he wasn't sure if he wanted to know or not. She was quiet, she didn't want to get him involved, "Darcy. What kind of help did you call in?"

He wasn't going to take no for an answer, so she gave him an honest one, "Federal help."

"Damn it Blake! What did I just say about watching that hot head? The chief is going to have your ass for this." He swore to himself, running his hands through greying hair.

"You're the one who said to always follow my gut." She defended, she knew she had made the right decision; there wasn't a single part of her that doubted it.

"Not when it goes directly against the chief's orders! That was not your call to make."

She clenched her jaw; of all the people she thought John would be the one to back her choices. She really was on her own this time.

"It was my call John, because no one else would make it." Darcy knew it would be petty, knew it was her temper talking, knew she would regret it later, but she opened her mouth and said it anyways, "Enjoy your retirement John; I know the chief will miss his loyal lapdog."

With that she grabbed her keys and headed for the door, she had copies of the case files at home; she could work with the FBI agent there. At least then she wouldn't have to wonder about loyalties.

_XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX_

_And there we are for this chapter! Yes, the story is finally getting fully underway and things will start picking up from here, and I must warn you readers, this is also where the story starts to take a dark turn. So, in the words of Scar, be prepared! I've got this story planned out at least ten chapters ahead and I can assure you readers...the slag is about to hit the fan ;)_

_Please drop me a review and let me know your thoughts, reactions, suggestions and hopes for this fic!_

_Next time on NRFTW: Yes, it has finally come, Darcy and Prowl meet! Fresh eyes will find something new and a gruesome discovery is made._

**_~Black Wolf-Dog~_**


	5. All That Was Not Expected

**Black Wolf-Dog: **_Oh my Primus I am SO SORRY! I never meant for this much time to pass between updates! I apologize a million times everyone, my only excuse is school got really busy and this chapter just refused to flow right. But at least it's finally here right? And it's the chapter you've been waiting for! Well...one of them...the lesser chapter you've been waiting for. Hey they're finally meeting alright? Which means things only get better from here! Well...not necessarily for the characters...and it also means the turning point for this story to really get darker. Pretty much if the end of this chapter bothers you...well as much as I hate turning away readers, get out now! Because there is much slag awaiting our dear friends in the future. For those who enjoy the slag hitting the fan, crime drama and realistic Decepticon brutality...there will be much to be enjoyed!_

_Anyways, as some of you may have noticed, I moved the story. It is now under the Transformers movie section instead of Cartoon. I may not be able to list Prowl as a character anymore, but this setting is Bayverse after all, so I figured it fits better in movie._

_Happy Valentines/Singles Awareness Day!_

**Spirit01: **_Thanks for dropping a review! Ehh, no, Darcy doesn't have a clue about what she's getting herself into XD She is about to find out a piece of it though!_

_Enjoy today's installment of NRFTW!_

* * *

_Murder is unique in that it abolishes the party it injures, so that society must take the place of the victim, and on his behalf demand atonement or grant forgiveness ~W.H. Auden_

The cold evaporated Darcy's anger the moment she stepped out of the station. Guilt gnawed at her; she knew how much John hated lapdogs, how one had almost gotten him killed because of 'orders'. But her pride refused to let her go back in and apologize. Not yet anyways. There was always tomorrow.

What there wasn't was time to further allow the guilt to eat away at her as a black and white Dodge Charger pulling into the station caught her attention. Leaning against the grill of her SUV, she watched the muscle car swing into the spot next to her and wondered what department it was from. POLICE was scrawled along the doors but she didn't recognize the logo on the side panel, red and blocky it somewhat resembled the face of a robot, or perhaps a cat. Whatever the logo was supposed to be of, Darcy couldn't name the jurisdiction that had it or figure out who was driving until he opened the door and stepped out. The man was definitely bureau; crisp suit, clean, shaven, serious expression and a walk that was all business.

He was also probably the most handsome man she'd even seen in person; at least six feet tall, short cropped brunette hair, square jaw, very Karl Urban-looking, except for the piercing blue eyes that probably shouldn't even be possible.

"Detective Darcy Blake; Agent Peter Row, FBI." He offered no handshake, instead pulling out his badge and flashing it barely long enough for her to see the bureau stamp. "Shall we get started?"

"Actually it's pretty crowded in there, is it alright with you if we go to my other office to work? I've got copies of all the files we'll need and decent coffee." Home, other office, there wasn't much of a difference to Darcy these days and she couldn't find it within herself to care that she was being a coward and avoiding her old mentor this way.

"Lead the way." His tone was flat and he said nothing further as he turned back to his car. Given the monotonous nature of his voice, she wondered if maybe he'd missed the day emotions were handed out. But she wasn't about the complain about not getting an emotional agent, she was already attached to these cases, perhaps less feeling was exactly what she needed.

The fact that the federal agent was driving a patrol car was odd, but that was a question for another time, instead Darcy wondered if perhaps she should have offered him a ride. The muscle car would be great for speed no doubt, but there was no telling how it would handle on the icy roads. But it was too late now, he had already pulled out and sat waiting for her. Shrugging to herself, she fired up the SUV and led the way out of the station's parking lot, the Charger right behind.

Her worry was for naught, as the high-powered vehicle stayed right behind her, never falling behind or skidding off track the whole way to her driveway. Throwing the SUV into park, she delayed turning off the vehicle for a moment as she listened to the radio forecast, thick fog was rolling in for the next several days, which was going to reduce visibility to almost zero and a high chance of snow in the coming week.

Silver lining, she mused, no hikers would dare tempt the mountains in those conditions.

Already the fog was rolling in, bringing with it freezing, stagnant air. It wouldn't be long before it was thick enough to cause another slew of accidents on the highways and back roads.

Darcy really didn't know what to say to the agent as they both climbed out of their vehicles and headed for the front door, so she settled with silence. It was almost awkward, especially when her old lock was frozen and she had to jimmy and shove to get it to open; but Agent Row offered no conversation so the silence stayed until Darcy had flipped the lights on and grabbed the box of files.

"This is everything I've got on all the connected cases, thirty-three people in nine months; same M.O., same signature." She stated as she dropped the box onto the coffee table.

Agent Row nodded, but still offered no words as he took a seat on the couch and started pulling out the files.

"I'll get some coffee going." It was a pathetic attempt she knew, and it still got her nothing but an acknowledging nod.

Moving towards the kitchen, she paused, distracted by the wall covered in her missing people. Sighing, she pulled open the nearest drawer and grabbed another little red pin, adding it to the map and hoping it would be the last.

Glancing back to the living room, Darcy was surprised to see the agent had already flipped through the cases and was busy separating them into piles. Had he possibly discovered something already?

A cold draft made her shiver and brought her back to the task at hand. Coffee, the lifeblood of law enforcement. After getting the pot started, she started digging through the nearly bare cupboards, hoping the agent liked his caffeine black; she had no creamer, no sugar and no milk apparently. When was the last time she'd gone grocery shopping anyway? She couldn't exactly remember.

"Impressive." Agent Row's voice came quite suddenly from behind her, making her jump and nearly drop the cups she was pulling down from the shelf. How had he gotten there so silently? No one had been able to sneak up on her like that in years!

He wasn't looking at her, or paying her the slightest attention but rather was focused on the decorated wall he was standing in front of, taking in every pin and detail of the victims and the map.

"Um, thanks, that's the nice way of putting it." John had had no qualms about telling her the opposite, that she really needed to separate work and her personal life. Not that there was much of a personal life to separate the work from anyways.

"You have nothing on this pin." He stated, finger on the red dot she had just added moments ago.

"That's where Tom Felton went missing a few days ago. I just got the case today and haven't gone through his entire file yet." She still had to check out his vehicle too, but that would have to wait until tomorrow, the sun was disappearing fast and the dark mixed with the incoming fog would make finding his car nearly impossible, and there was plenty to do until then.

"Hmm." He continued to stare at the map, analyzing it as if he could scan every detail into his memory.

"Coffee?" Darcy offered after a long moment of silence, motioning to the pot that had sputtered out enough of the caffeine for a cup.

"No." Row turned and walked back into the living room, going back to the files he had yet to sort. Darcy blinked, unsure she had actually heard him right. Did he really just refuse coffee? A law enforcement agent refused the black gold that was their fuel? How did he function without it? If this was a sci-fi movie Darcy would swear he wasn't human.

But this was reality and as hard as it was to believe, apparently there really was a law enforcer who refused coffee, so Darcy poured the cup for herself and joined Row on the couch, grabbing Tom's file. And so the two sat in silence, ruffling pages bringing about the only sound as the work absorbed them both.

Night rolled in, bringing blinding fog and freezing temperatures, turning the roads into ice rinks and blinding those who attempted to see outside. The world outside quieted with every passing moment and one by one the people of the small city shut off their lights and went to bed. But like most nights, the lights in the house of Detective Blake stayed on.

By the time the first jaw-cracking yawn hit Darcy, she had condensed the information from Tom's file onto one page and was putting it up on the wall, pinning it in place and tying a string from the paper to the red pin on the map. Row hadn't said a word the entire time except to decline coffee again when Darcy went for her second cup. Instead he sorted, stacked and resorted again as he worked through whatever theories he could come up with.

When two yawns cracked her jaw within five minutes of each other and she moved for her third cup of fuel, she was shocked to see the little clock on the microwave read three a.m. Had time really passed that quickly? She glanced back to Row to see if the exhaustion had hit him yet, but the agent seemed just as awake as when they had started; it was incredibly unfair.

As much as she appreciated the diligence, Darcy knew she would be good to no one if she didn't get some sleep soon. Thankfully Agent Row seemed to have either read her mind or was finally feeling the effects of the hour as he set the files aside and stood, "You need rest and there is little else we can accomplish before light. I will be back at dawn."

It was so matter of fact and sudden that Darcy was left blinking at an empty couch as the agent's muscle car fired up and pulled out of the driveway. The hell just happened? Whatever it was, Darcy's muddled brain was too tired to figure it out, so she flipped off the lights and collapsed into bed fully clothed, hoping morning would bring some results.

Dawn came entirely too early, as did the sharp knock on the front door. Grumbling to herself, Darcy quickly threw on a set of clean clothes and made her tangled dark hair at least somewhat acceptable before pulling the door open for the agent.

"You weren't kidding when you said you'd be here at dawn." She yawned, praying there was at least a cup's worth of coffee still in the pot.

"Days are too short to waste any light." Still with the monotone voice! Darcy had hoped that after the first day the agent would be inclined to put some sort of inflection in his voice or expression, but no luck. He really was the perfect stereotype of a federal agent. And entirely too perfect and put together for this hour in the morning after a night with so few hours of sleep.

"Coffee? Muffin?" She offered as she drug herself to the kitchen, grabbing a breakfast pastry for herself.

"No." He refused again. If he hadn't just picked up one of the files Darcy would swear he wasn't real. But he was real alright; her imagination would never conjure up someone who refused the very things she lived off of.

Inhaling the food and caffeine, Darcy quickly finished getting ready and returned to the living room as Agent Row studied the map that showed where Tom's truck would be waiting for them. "I know how to get up there; Kallen said it was right off Old Junction road on the Kentucky Curve."

Row raised an eyebrow—finally a new expression!—"None of these roads are marked or labeled."

Darcy nodded, idly wondering what big city he had come from, "Old logging roads usually aren't, but they're popular with 4-wheelers and horses so we gave them names. Made it easier to meet up with friends out there."

"I will drive." Was his response as he set the map down and headed for the door. Darcy knew some people had no skills when it came to social interactions but _damn_, she didn't know it was possible to be that bad at it.

"Are you sure?" She asked, glancing out at the thick fog, knowing there would be plenty of ice up there. She would be much more comfortable taking her 4-wheel drive up the mountain than the car.

"Yes, I will get better traction than your vehicle will." It was all he offered as he stepped out of the house, leaving Darcy no choice but to follow.

She frowned as she stepped outside, a thin layer of pure ice coated her hood, yet the Charger was completely dry and ice free. Well, it was a supped-up muscle car; it was bound to run a little hot.

It was a near silent drive up the mountain, the only sound being Darcy's occasional directions. To her surprise, the Charger didn't slip once, even in spots she knew the SUV would have. This car had to have more power and weight to it than it appeared.

"So what's an FBI agent doing with a patrol car?" She finally asked when the silence started bridging on awkward. She could only enjoy the soft leather of the seat for so long after all.

"I'm from a special undercover unit." He didn't shrug, look away from the road or even blink. This man was the epitome of stoic.

The further into the woods they went, the thicker the fog became until, as the pavement gave way to gravel long abandoned by the logging trucks, visibility was reduced to only several feet. The potholes jostled the Charger little as Row maneuvered it up the twisted, winding road with almost too much ease for someone who had never been on it before.

Through the white, the green Ranger slowly came into view, barely visible even from ten feet away. Row pulled in behind the truck, leaving the engine running as Darcy climbed out. She was slightly surprised he elected to stay in his seat, fiddling with the controls on the dash instead.

Leaving the agent to his own business, Darcy walked up to the truck, placing the back of her hand lightly on the hood, cold and icy as expected. It had been at least twenty-four hours since the engine had run, and many days beyond that judging from the thickness of the ice coating the entire thing. Snapping gloves on, she tried the door, satisfied that it was unlocked and that a few sharp tugs broke the icy resistance and swung it open. Inside the truck had a thin layer of dirt and dust over everything, a feature she'd come to notice in all ranger vehicles. A duffel was in the passenger seat and as Darcy reached across the cab to grab it, leaning partially across the driver's seat, she noticed the keys still dangling in the ignition.

Well that was certainly different. Frowning, she unzipped the duffel; it was Tom's overnight bag, filled with several changes of clothes and freeze-dried food rations. A gallon of water sat on the floor, completely full and untouched. Besides a beat up baseball cap on the dash and a rolled sleeping bag, there wasn't much else in the truck. But it all pointed to one undeniable fact. Tom had been missing for longer than just seven days.

Sliding out of the truck, her pant leg caught on the side of the body, tearing a small hole in the jeans and scratching her leg. Wobbling on one foot, Darcy unhooked the material from the jagged edge and leaned closer to see just what she had scraped against. There, along at least two feet of the bottom edge of the truck, the metal was crunched, bunched and broken, though in such a miniscule way that she would have missed it otherwise. The damage looked relatively new too, and for once, the vehicle was fully worth the pains of processing further. She could have just struck evidential gold, and Row, for all his oddities and who still sat in his Charger, just may be her new good luck charm.

Oh yes, he was definitely good luck, she mused as she pulled out her cell, surprised to find a full bar of service out this far and wasting no time to call the station to have the truck towed to the evidence garage.

Row still hadn't moved when she climbed back into his car, "How long?"

Darcy sighed, snapping the gloves off and shoving them back into her pocket, "Sleeping bag was rolled up, clean clothes in a duffel, food and water untouched. Whatever happened to him happened as soon as he got out here."

It also meant Tom had been missing for a full two weeks and the chances of finding him alive were about as likely as meeting an alien who spoke fluent English.

"The CSI's are on their way with the tow truck, I'm going to look around off the road to see if I can find anything there." Darcy moved to push the door back open, but paused as the handle gave locked resistance and Row spoke up.

"Don't bother. You won't find anything. Felton didn't leave from this point."

"How do you know?" She frowned, trying the door again even as the agent threw the car into gear.

"Tire tracks going in, none pulling over to where it's sitting now; you left footprints, there are none moving away from the vehicle."

"It's been two weeks…" What kind of investigator was he exactly? Even in the cities footprints didn't last long when they were left in the first place.

"Has it rained?" He asked.

"Well, no…"

"There you go." Row pulled the car back onto the road before Darcy could argue further and it was only as they passed the Ranger that she could see the faintest of impressions from her steps. How Row had seen those from where he had parked she had no idea.

Two miles further up the dirt road where Tom was supposed to have been starting out from, Row pulled over again, this time cutting the engine and getting out.

"I hope you brought your hiking boots Agent Row, this might be a long day." Darcy mused, the thick fog would make it all the more difficult to see, so that meant there would be a lot of trekking back and forth. Row furrowed his brows slightly at the fog, as if he could peer hard enough to see through it. Darcy knew his pressed suit and shiny shoes wouldn't last for long, even if all the mud was frozen solid.

There was a ghost of a foul smell in the air, reeking like a dead skunk but faint enough to leave only a bad feel to every breath.

"This is where he embarked from his vehicle." Row stated, pointing towards the end of the tire tracks still frozen in the gravel. Squatting down next to them, Darcy could see the faint footprints leading away from the tire tracks and into the woods.

"Looks like he followed a game trail." She stated, stepping off the road and onto a thin strip of well-worn dirt. Two weeks should have destroyed all traces of Tom's footprints with animal traffic, but there was only one set of prints that crossed over Tom's, a large buck going the opposite way, back towards the road at full speed.

The trees were tall, thin and sparse, but the tall grass and brush had taken over the undergrowth. Combined with the fog, it made potentially spotting anything off of the trail nearly impossible. But for now Tom's tracks stayed on the game trail, so Darcy and Row did the same.

With every step the smell became stronger and stronger, until every breath brought with it a horrid taste that threatened to activate Darcy's gag reflex. For his part, Agent Row seemed utterly unfazed by the smell and equally unruffled by the increasing ground they covered. Darcy was beginning to wonder if anything would affect that man.

Deeper and deeper into the valley they went, following the game trail until Tom's tracks finally veered off of it. The frozen brush was still bent and compressed from his steps, making retracing his path that much easier, though the smell was easily making up for it. The detective had smelt some rank things before, had been down in the sewers in summer, digging through dumpsters and musty basements, but even with the cold dampening much of the stench's strength, she doubted she had ever smelled anything worse.

Traipsing through the grass was quickly wearing on the sleep-deprived woman, and the cold creeping up from the tear in her pants sunk deep into the bone, almost numbing her leg. The result was a less than graceful walk and mixed with the uneven terrain, well it was really no surprise that Darcy didn't see the large dip in the path and tripped right into it.

It was only Agent Row's lightning fast reflexes that saved her from an unpleasant meeting with the ground, his hand wrapping around her arm, reeling her back upright and releasing his hold the second she was stable. Darcy could feel the embarrassment tingeing her cheeks pink and she wished the earth _wouldn't_ try to swallow her up.

She glanced down to see just what she had tripped over and immediately forgot about her embarrassment. The ground was dipped down and flattened at least two feet across, and mashed into the frozen mud at the bottom of it was a green jacket sleeve. Snapping the gloves back on, Darcy reached down, tugging the fabric out of the ground. It crackled as she picked it up, studying the shredded seams at the shoulder. Then she glanced below the seam and felt her hope crash and burn.

"This was Tom's." She sighed, holding up the sleeve so the agent could see the Ranger patch stitched into it. Frozen blood coated the inside and around the torn seam; whatever chances Tom had, had just all but disappeared.

A southern wind blasted through the valley, channeled by the mountains on either side, it relieved the law enforcement officers of the bad smell at least temporarily, and shoved some of the fog apart and aside.

"What the hell?" Darcy muttered, squinting into the fog as an odd shape became visible in the grass. The more she looked, the more it appeared to be a large area of completely flattened grass and brush.

Row was busy analyzing the impression in the ground, so Darcy slowly trekked forward on her own, mentally cursing when the gust died down and the stench hit her full force. She was suddenly extremely glad the muffin was the only food she'd had.

Every step was taken slowly and cautiously, lest she trample potential evidence. The flattened area came closer and closer, but still the fog was too thick and it was too far away for her to see anything of worth. So she kept going, keeping hyper aware of where she placed her foot every step. She could feel it in her gut, feel it slithering down her spine and raising the hairs on the back of her neck, there was something up ahead that would change this case. The smell gave her an idea of what it could be, but she dared not think about it until the proof lay right before her eyes. She paused some fifteen feet from where the grass first lay trampled down, the standing stalks still blocking her view of whatever may be on the ground. Looking back she tried to spot Agent Row, but the fog and grass had swallowed him up and she could not see nor hear nothing of him. The detective was already out this far though, she wasn't about to turn around just because she could no longer pinpoint her partner. So, taking a deep breath, Darcy tried to ignore the goose bumps prickling her arms and continued on.

She was less than a pace away from the standing grass line when she saw the stark white of something through the fog. Something far too white to be anything other than what she was unwilling to confirm it as. But as she breached the line, she couldn't deny it, nor could she deny that this just changed her case entirely. Strewn about, the bones were a chilling contrast to the trampled grass and frozen mud they lay on, and in some cases, partially buried in. As much as she hoped there had been some way they were the remains of an animal, the skull was unmistakably human, and one of her missing just turned into a homicide.

The wind whistled through the valley again, shifting the fog once more and temporarily clearing Darcy's line of sight further.

"Mother of God." She breathed, staring at the scene before her and barely able to believe her own eyes. She had known whatever was going on was big, bigger than anything she had ever dealt with before, but she had never guessed it was anything on this scale. Never had she ever imagined a scene so large and gruesome and she knew it would be a long time before she would be able to close her eyes and not see what currently lay before her.

As far as the tempered fog allowed her to see, at least a full acre of the valley floor had been turned into a pit of decaying gore. Hunks of flesh, bone and muscle were strewn everywhere, bits of shredded clothing still covered some while others had been reduced to nothing but chipped and broken bone. There wasn't even any order, no positioning of the bodies, no attempts to cover them or hide them. They were everywhere, dumped on top of older victims, tossed aside and many in pieces. Pale bones poked out from under and through muscles, skin had sloughed off and pooled around the newer bodies. There were so many that Darcy's knees shook and her breath was sucked out of her lungs. It was impossible to see just how far this pit went, and equally impossible to even begin counting the number of victims out there.

Darcy squatted down as her legs threatened to give out on her, her eyes burning with the pure horror laid out before her. Her attention was caught by two particular bodies some feet away, slowly succumbing to the process, but appearing to be the most recent of those in her view. The backpacks still on their backs, dark hair and familiar faces told her exactly who they were.

She had found Andrew's friends.

* * *

_Hey, I did warn you all the slag was starting to hit the fan. I really wasn't kidding with that. :D So there you all have it! Darcy and 'Prowl' have met, Darcy obviously doesn't believe in a human being not drinking coffee and we finally see what Tom had stumbled upon in Chapter 1! Any guesses on his fate and who did it? Brownies to those who guess right!_

_I really, really plan to have the next chapter out sooner than this one took, but I have some big projects in school right now, including book reviews and essays (yuck), so I am going to be insanely busy...oh and I get to go dress shopping with my sister again...yay...(can you all just sense my enthusiasm?). But alas, no matter how much I dislike it, she is my sister, she's getting married and I am her maid of honor, so I have no choice but to do it with a smile. ;)_

_I am curious to how you all would like Darcy to meet Prowl's real self, so let me know in a review please!_

_Next time, on NRFTW: COD of the victims are revealed, a breakthrough is made and a new victim hits just a little too close to home for someone._

**~Black Wolf-Dog~**


	6. Turn of the Dice

**Black Wolf-Dog:** _Primus I am so sorry! I won't bore you all with excuses as to why this is so late, just know I am sorry! I hate not updating for such long periods :( On the plus, I got Transformers War for Cybertron! Although...that means more distractions for me XD Spring quarter starts on the 1st and I'll be picking up extra hours at work for an unknown length of time sooo...well I'll just keep updating whenever I can! I have so many plans for this story so it will be finished! Thank you to all who reviewed!_

**Spirit01-**_Tis a good guess! Oh yes, she's starting to get an idea, and her understanding will only continue to grow! Though eventually she may decide that's not such a good thing ;) Haha Prowl's a bit better at keeping himself secret than some of the other...less 'logical' bots. Thank you! Hopefully this one will too!_

**Frog1_-_**_Thank you! Haha, well really, who wouldn't find a blue-eyed Karl Urban gorgeous? And well...Chargers are nice cars ;)_

**Silver-Streaked Wings**-_I don't think anyone really expected that many bodies. XD What can I say? I enjoy surprising people. Thank you! I do love hearing that you enjoy my/Darcy's perception of Prowl, he is rather amusing to write. :)_

**Whispered-Lullaby- **_Oh yes, I've noticed this sad lack of Prowl/OC stories. Poor Prowler. I'm so glad you are enjoying it! I can say I'm guilty of reading those Decepticon stories, but many of them just seem to portray the 'Cons as...well not the evil, twisted beings they are. This fic fully intends to exploit some of the 'Cons far more sadistic natures. :) My perception of Prowl is that he's always a sourpuss. Haha kidding, but really...he's a lot like a Cybertronian Spock with a moral grey area...which will certainly come into play later ;) And yes, he is certainly *not* a fan of politics. Haha, well...you're certainly going to be more upset with the boss after this chapter ;) Perfect! I'm glad that scene was chilling! That's just what I want to hear!_

**Skipping on Shadows- **_Ha-ha! You were the only one to mention that! Glad you liked it, I sure got a kick out of writing it! ;) Glad you are enjoying it! I hope you continue to do so! And well...I got through the schoolwork, there was plenty of fuss on my part, but I got through it ;)_

_Enjoy the next chapter of NRFTW!_

* * *

_No one can confidently say that he will still be living tomorrow. ~Euripides_

"How long this time?" Laurie asked, sipping on her cup of tea and carefully watching her sister for any signs of a new round of tears.

"Six months." Cathy sniffed, taking a steadying breath to try and compose herself. She hated this, going through it again and again, promising she'd be stronger next time. But how does one be strong when their husband is deployed for months at a time? How can a wife stay tear-free when she goes home to an empty house, never knowing if that had been her final goodbye?

She had kept herself together for her husband, had kept the tears at bay as she kissed him and watched him get on the plane. But when she had arrived at home, Laurie already waiting for her with a fresh pot of tea, she lost the strength to hold back the flood and cried out her pain, praying he would be brought home safe.

"Did he tell you where he's being stationed?" Laurie asked again; it was the same questions, the same tea and the same heartache every time, but she would be there for her sister, until the time came again when Cathy would adjust to the quiet house and eagerly await the day the plane would bring her Daniel back to her.

She shook her head, finishing the last gulp of her hot tea, Laurie always knew how to make it best. "It's classified. Ever since he was recruited to that special ops team he can't tell me anything! All he could say was that he would be 'hanging with the big boys in white sands'."

Her frustration at the secrecy was obvious, but he loved his job and if not telling her exactly where he was saved lives, then she would deal with it. She wouldn't like it, she would never like it, but she would deal with it.

Laurie stayed with her sister for another few hours, leaving only after the sun had dipped below the horizon and Cathy retired to bed exhausted, promising she would be back again tomorrow.

She took the back roads home, preferring the extra miles to the busy streets and harried, impatient drivers. Flicking on her brights, she leisurely cruised down the empty road, fiddling with the radio until she found a country station. Singing along to Eric Church, she tapped the brakes, letting a doe and her fawn dart across the road before accelerating back up to the speed limit. Laurie sighed, loving how the line of trees relaxed her and brought a semblance of peace to her mind. She really did need to move out of her apartment in the city, it was a crap-hole anyways, and the landlord was a perverted jerk. She had been saving up for a long vacation, but living out in the woods would be just as much as a stress reliever… That settled it then, once Cathy was alright again, she was house hunting. Hmm, maybe before then, it would do her sister good to get out and get her mind off of Daniel's absence. Tomorrow it is! And for lunch they could go to that great little diner on the side of the highway, maybe catch a movie after dinner.

Coasting around a blind corner, Laurie slammed on the brakes, swearing loudly as the car barreled towards the large lump in the middle of the road. There was no shoulder on the narrow road, if her car didn't stop in time, there was no way she could avoid hitting it.

Tires screeching against the pavement, the car finally stopped mere feet from the obstruction, headlights shining brightly on the lump of…something. Heart beating wildly, Laurie climbed out of the car, wondering what someone had dumped in the middle of the road. She paused next to her door, what if it was a body? What if the killer was still close-by? Shaking her head, the woman promised herself the lay off of the Criminal Minds marathons.

Stepping up to the fender, Laurie couldn't help but be wary. Her mother had been right all along apparently, the crime shows did wear on her.

'_Stop it.'_ She chided herself, '_It's probably just garbage or a carpet.'_ It certainly wouldn't have been the first time she'd found unusual things tossed out on unpopulated back roads.

As she crept around the front of her car, headlights blaring on the obstruction, her heart continued to beat a mad rhythm that just refused to be slowed. She gasped, jumping back when she saw the dark hair sticking out from the bundled cloth. Thoughts of serial killers and armed madmen in the woods invaded her mind, keeping her ears straining for any hint of the potential killer coming back as she slowly stepped forward again. There was always a chance—no matter how slim—that whoever this victim was could still be alive, even if only barely.

But as she reached out to roll the body over, arm shaking and breath held, her hand passed right through it.

"What?" She yelped, jumping back and ramming the back of her knees on her car's bumper as the body she couldn't touch disappeared entirely.

Millions of scenarios of death and torture raced through her mind as she dashed frantically back into the safety of her car, slamming on the electronic lock. Belatedly she thought to look in the backseat, so flipping on the interior lights, she whirled around, nearly shrieking as an empty seat greeted her. Gasping for breath that seemed to evade her, Laurie turned the interior lights back off, wondering if perhaps she had had a bit too much to drink. Bodies didn't just appear and disappear in the middle of the road; that last drink coupled with her general lack of sleep in the last few days had to be mixing up the signals between her eyes and her brain. Definitely no more crime shows for a long while.

Shaking her head at what had to be an overactive imagination, she threw the car back into drive, determining to make it home and sleep for many long hours, Cathy would be fine with a late start tomorrow. The car rolled forward as she stepped off the brake and onto the gas, wanting nothing more than to be curled up in her thick blankets. She really should have taken the city route; it was much quicker after all, she probably would have been reaching her door right now if she had.

Not ten feet in front of her the body flashed into view again and fake or not, instinct made her slam on the brakes again. This was either one hell of a hallucination or…well she wasn't quite sure what 'or' could be, but it was certainly happening. Before the car even came to a full stop, before she could contemplate driving through the illusion, the car sputtered and died. The engine cut like a switch, the headlights following as the vehicle slowly rolled with the last of its previous momentum through the blinding dark. She couldn't see the illusion, she couldn't see the road, or inside the car; she couldn't see a damn thing. Panic invaded her mind as she desperately cranked the key, willing the car to come back to life. It didn't even turn over, refused to even attempt to start. Heart pounding in her ears and drowning out all other sounds, she felt around the car in a panicked haze, yanking on the switch for the interior lights, though those too stayed dark. Frantically she felt around the passenger seat, attempting to find and dig through her purse by touch. A small sliver of relief shot through her as her hand grasped her cell phone. She was getting the hell out of her whether it was in her car or someone else's.

"No, no, no!" She yelled as she pressed the buttons to no avail. The phone was dead too.

The roar of a powerful engine cut through her panicking thoughts. Rescue! Someone else was going to drive by and save her from whatever the hell was going on!

Yanking on the door, she cried out as the locks stayed steadfastly in place, refusing to budge; the electronic mechanism that controlled them as dead as all the other electronics. She banged on the window, wondering when the sound of the engine was going to change to indicate it was coming closer. Headlights blasted directly through the glass, blinding her. But the lights weren't coming through her windshield or back window, but rather, through her _passenger_ window. But there was nothing on that side of the road but trees and brush!

The engine of the mysterious vehicle revved, the headlights suddenly blasting brighter and getting closer at an alarming rate.

She never had a chance to even attempt to break the window and escape before the headlights reached the passenger side. Whatever rightly happened Laurie would never be able to say. The force of the impact flung her body like a rag doll, bashing her head on…some part of the vehicle. She could feel her car being pushed across the road for a short second before another impact on her side brought the car to a crunching halt. Glass was shattered, the frame was buckled, the metal torn; she could feel it all stabbing into her skin as her head pounded from a second hit and her bearings refused to be gathered. Metal screeched and clanked and against metal, air exhausts vented and for the briefest moment, Laurie thought she saw a flash of large tires and blue paint before the pounding against her skull overtook her mind and drug her into oblivion.

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX

Red and blue lights flashed from almost every direction, bright spotlights shone off the roofs of the vehicles, keeping the gruesome scene visible well after the sun had set. Darcy wasn't even sure what the exact protocol for processing a scene like this was, she wasn't sure anyone in the department was. The sheer size and magnitude of it was never something they had ever been prepared for.

The freezing fog had done little to help the officers' figure out how far they needed to tape off before that idea was thrown out the window. Instead the entire fleet of SUV's had been brought up and formed a wide ring of flashing lights around the pit. The whole department was out here working on it, but with the only homicide detective now retired as of midnight, Darcy suddenly found herself thrust into a roll she wasn't entirely prepared for.

But as of this moment, she had a slightly more pressing matter than ordering around officers who knew how to do their job. The chief had arrived moments ago and instead of making a beeline for her, he was headed towards Agent Row, who hadn't said much of anything since making the call to her department when her cell had refused to find service. It really wouldn't have been much of an issue…if her involving the FBI had been sanctioned.

Readjusting the dust mask someone had given her to combat the smell, she started to pick her way towards the two men, hoping to reach them before the chief could officially remove the agent from the case.

"Detective Blake?" An officer halted her progress as he stepped in front of her, a clipboard and notes in hand. He looked young and green and Darcy had little doubt he was one of the many who had revisited their meals when they arrived.

"Yes…Campbell?" She peered at his nametag, it was vaguely familiar, most likely one of the new officers brought in over the last few months.

"Preliminary findings indicate there are at least fifty-two human remains out there and one horse. The M.E. says time of deaths are ranging from a few weeks to at least a year." To his credit, he rattled off the information with all the professionalism he could muster, though the mere thought of so many bodies before him seemed to be making him want to purge again.

Darcy nodded, waving him off to return to whatever duty he'd been assigned. Fifty-two people and counting; murdered and dumped in her jurisdiction. And it took her almost a year to find this dumping ground. She couldn't help but feel her gut sink as the guilt hit her. Why did it take her so long to find this place? How many of those people could be alive today if she'd found it sooner?

Forcibly ripping herself from those thoughts she returned to the here and now, she could wallow in guilt later, doing it now was not going to bring those people back, but finding and stopping whoever was responsible would at least bring some justice for the living.

One horse's remains found out in that pit? Erika Kyle, presumed victim number one, who had disappeared April 10th of the previous year, had been riding her horse. Darcy would bet anything Erika's bones would be found out there.

Glancing over to the chief and FBI agent, Darcy winced. While both men stood calm and were speaking in level tones, she could see the tell-tale redness of the chief's face that stated he was fighting hard to not blow up. The pulsing vein in his forehead proved that it was just as bad as she imagined. Row, for his part, appeared as stoic and unfazed as ever. Even after initially discovering the dumping grounds, the cold indifference in his expression had Darcy half expecting him to call the horror 'unfortunate'.

She barely made it two steps towards them when she was stopped again.

"Detective?" she turned toward the approaching officer. Another rookie she barely recognized; well, at least they were getting experience. "We've ID'ed one of the recent victims, Tom Felton. There is also a set of tire tracks we discovered leading to and from the pit. There is also some sort of corrosive acid on some of the bodies."

"Alright, I'll notify his family. Get an impression of those tracks and a sample of that acid to the lab right away." She sighed, the acid and tracks could be a huge lead, but she sorely wished she could have better news for the rangers and Tom's wife.

The officer hurried off to relay her orders as Darcy started moving back towards the quiet confrontation. Her steps halted again, the argument had ended and now the chief was heading straight for her.

"We will have words later." He growled as he stalked past. She sighed again, the look on his face suggested she would be very lucky to escape that particular conversation with her job.

"That man is a simple-minded arrogant fool." Darcy started as Row appeared beside her.

She shrugged as they watched the chief climb into his car and drive off, "It's an election year."

"That's not an excuse for reprehensive behavior."

"That's politics." She shrugged again, wondering what kind of Bureau agent he was that he'd never dealt with politicians before.

"I am beginning to see the pattern." He muttered to himself. Apparently he had at least some experience with bureaucrats.

There was nothing for the two to do, so they stood and watched as the coroners loaded the body bags into the vans. They would be at it all night and there really wasn't much point in the head detective and FBI agent hanging around any longer. Besides, Darcy thought as a jaw cracking yawn hit her, it had been weeks since she'd even had eight hours of sleep in one night, and it had been that morning that'd she'd had her last cup of coffee. Sleep or coffee, she'd honestly take either and didn't particularly care which.

Row glanced over at her for a moment before speaking, "There is nothing else to do this night and you need to recharge."

Darcy snorted, readjusting the dust mask again as she followed him back to his Charger, "I'd rather just replace the battery."

She would almost say he hesitated at that, looking back at her before shaking his head and muttering something too low for her to hear. She was too tired to even care what the stuffy agent thought.

Climbing into the muscle car, she was extraordinary grateful for whatever was wrong with the thing that made it still warm after sitting in the cold for well over twelve hours. As Row started the engine and began down the long road back to civilization, Darcy leaned her head against the window, lulled by the warmth and purring engine into the place between consciousness and sleep. Even the window was warm, she noticed absently.

"You can crash at my place if you want, I've got a spare room and it beats driving all the way into the city for the hotel." She muttered. He'd gotten as little sleep—less actually from the drive to whatever hotel he was staying in—as her, so why not offer the spare bed? They were most likely going back up the mountain tomorrow anyways.

Row said nothing, and it wasn't until the phone buzzing in her pocket jolted her to awareness that Darcy realized they were back on pavement and out of the trees, apparently she'd fallen asleep. And while the perfect warmth of the cruiser encouraged her to go back to sleep, the buzzing had woken her enough that she wasn't about to ignore it. It was a text. From the chief? The chief didn't send texts…well, unless it was the only way to get a message to her, intended for whenever she came back down into the reception area. Funny that she was just getting it now, wasn't there reception in that spot by Tom's truck?

She sighed after reading the text, thumping her head back against the headrest, "Sleep will have to wait, Chief just called me to the station."

Without blinking, Row shifted the car out of the turn lane, still unbelievably unaffected by the hour.

A rumbling, growling stomach reminding her of that single muffin so many hours ago quickly had Darcy altering plans again, "Chief can wait a few extra minutes, food comes first, there's a 24-hour McDonald's just up the road from the station."

It certainly wasn't healthy food by any means, but Darcy couldn't find it within herself to care, there were far worse things than fast food at two in the morning. Without question of the choice or directions, Row drove straight past the station and into the parking lot of the greasy food joint. His expression stayed neutral except for the small eyebrow raise when he saw the colorful place.

"You want anything? I'm buying." She offered, climbing out of the Charger and walking into the building. No way was she about to eat in a car that nice.

"No." Row responded stiffly, slowly looking around at the cheerfully decorated walls.

Darcy was beginning to give up on this guy; he didn't drink or eat anything, at least anything that she had seen.

Row wondered off to find a table—not that there were really any that _weren't_ available—but Darcy had a feeling he would want a prime spot to watch the door and his Charger. Glancing over to the spot he chose, she knew she wasn't wrong.

"Are you sure you don't want anything?" she asked when she sat across from him with her food.

He picked up one of the fries, looking over it like it had somehow offended him. He quickly dropped the questionable food back onto the tray, "I assure you I can find my own…sustenance."

Taking a gulp of the coffee, Darcy grimaced. For all the hype of the commercials, the station's coffee tasted betted than this. But caffeine was caffeine, so after inhaling her meal, she quickly downed the rest of the cup. "Alright, might as well face the executioner now."

Row gave her a strange look as they walked back out to his car, "It would be counterproductive for your senior officer to murder you."

She snorted, just where did this guy come from? "Depending on just how mad he is, he might not think so."

The trip back to the station didn't take nearly long enough, and when Row parked in front of the station's doors, Darcy stayed seated for a long moment before heaving a heavy sigh and climbing out. She turned back to Row before she closed the door, he had been shadowing her all day, he certainly didn't need to continue doing so, "The chief just demanded my presence, you don't have to wait; there is no telling how long he may go on for."

Row nodded, but killed the engine just the same. Darcy couldn't help but give a small grin; it was always good to have an FBI agent as backup.

Walking into the nearly empty station and towards the chief's open door, the detective couldn't help but think drums wouldn't have been out of place.

"Close the door Detective." The chief ordered the second she entered his office. She did so, knowing such an order was never a good sign and feeling a pit of dread sink into her gut as the door clicked shut.

"Do you enjoy your job detective?" He asked before she had even turned around. Sitting comfortably behind his desk, the chief did nothing but look at her. His laptop remained shut, paperwork untouched and phone tucked away; no, he had his sole attention on the woman before him, and that was never a good thing.

"Of course Sir." She answered hesitantly, unsure if it was a rhetorical question or not.

"And do you understand when direct orders are given to you?" the calm voice was still present, but so was the pulsing vein, suggesting the quiet wasn't going to last.

"Yes Sir, I do." She knew where this was going, and she wanted to speak out, explain why there had been no other choice, why it was the best thing to do, but speaking out of turn would be a very bad idea at this point.

"Then would you mind telling me what the _hell_ the FBI is doing here?!" he'd lost the calm and quiet, ending in the full yell he'd obviously been holding back and making Darcy very glad the station had been sparsely populated.

"Sir…"

"No." He held up his hand, signaling he really didn't care what she had to say for herself. "I gave you a direct order and you deliberately disobeyed! I will not stand for insubordination in my department. You called in the feds when I wanted this done in-house."

"I know it wasn't what you wanted sir, but it was necessary…"

The chief cut her off again, "I don't need officers who do what they _think _is necessary! I need officers I can trust to follow orders."

"Sometimes the end justifies the means Chief." Why couldn't he see that? Sometimes one _had_ to bend the rules in order to save lives.

"Not in my department. This isn't the first time you've crossed the line, but it is the last. Pack your things Blake, you're done here."

"What?!" She could understand a demotion, perhaps even desk duty for a few years, but to lose her job entirely?

"The conversation is over, I expect your desk cleared by tomorrow."

That was it then? He was just going to fire her? And then what? Find someone new for the case? Not if she could help it.

"Look," she placed her hands on his desk, "fire me for doing the right thing, I don't care. But _not_ until this case is closed! I know the details of it better than anyone else; by the time someone new gets caught up, whatever leads the dumping grounds will give will be gone! Take my job, but let me see this one through to the end."

The chief sat staring at her for several long moments; it was a good sign, at least he was thinking about it. "You will run every decision you make by me, you will take no new cases or get involved in any new cases. This will be your one and only and you are gone the moment it's done. Now get out."

Giving a stiff nod, Darcy walked out of the chief's office, pausing a moment by her desk to gather her bearings. She loved this job—hell it _was_ her life—but she still stood by her decisions. At least she would be able to finish this case, she could worry about the job after it was over. Glancing over at John's empty desk, the guilt hit her again. She still hadn't apologized to him. Later, she had later to do so. Right now the priority was getting home and getting some sleep so she could accurately analyze what had been found at the massive crime scene.

Dragging herself out of the station, she was surprised and grateful to see Row still sitting in the parking lot, passenger door unlocked and open for her. He didn't ask when she climbed in, and she didn't tell him. But it was nice to not be completely alone.

The trip to the house was silent, and for the first time Darcy could say the agent actually looked tired, or at least mildly strained. No doubt he needed a good sleep as well.

"The offer still stands." She yawned as they pulled into her driveway, "The guest room is there if you want it."

Honestly she expected him to refuse like he did everything else, instead he surprised her again by nodding and following her inside.

"It's on the right." She pointed down the hall at the open door as she stumbled through her own. "Feel free to raid the cupboards if you're hungry. Goodnight."

She wasn't even really sure if she was still speaking English as the exhaustion muddled her words together. Barely managing to close her door all the way, she shuffled to the bed, knowing she should shower first, or at the very least change her clothes. But she was too tired to care, so she flopped onto the bed and was out by the time her head hit the pillow.

She didn't dream, or if she did, she had no memories of it. She wasn't even sure why she had woken up until the shrill ringing of the phone alerted her to the reason for her disturbed sleep. Blearily she threw her hand onto the nightstand, attempting to find the phone without lifting her head from the pillow or opening her eyes. Curiosity finally won over when her hand found its target; dragging the phone to her, she glanced at the time and the caller ID. Muttering a hello, she wondered why John was calling her at a quarter to seven.

"Detective Darcy Blake?" the voice was female, and it took Darcy a long moment to remember that her old mentor was married. She'd met his wife once, several years ago, but the voice matched.

"Yes." She drawled, eyes half closed, she was already well on the way back into the land of blissful sleep. She was just so _damn_ tired.

The woman on the other end sucked in a shaky breath. "John's missing, I think he's been kidnapped."

* * *

_So yeah, I know last chapter's 'next time' mentioned COD for all the victims, but then this chapter ended up covering less time than I had originally planned, but oh well! Told ya all it was going to start hitting closer to home! And it's just going to keep getting closer from here! Any theories on what you think will happen? I'd love to hear them!_

_So there was another Decepticon in this chapter, which one of you can guess who it was? :)_

_Next time on NRFTW: COD shall actually be revealed, Darcy breaks the rules...again and a little more help is on the way!_

**~Black Wolf-Dog~**


	7. Going Rogue

**Black Wolf-Dog: **_Dear Primus I am so sorry! I never wanted to make you lovely readers wait so long for one measly update! Sorry! School, work, wedding plans, it all cut far more into my writing time than I ever anticipated. Plus it didn't help that my muse temporarily gave out on me :P But it is back now! Just in time for finals, Kenny Chesney concert with my sister, scouting camping trip with Dad and my sister's bachelorette party. All in the month of June! Haha, the good news is that my only plan for July is the bridal shower and working on cleaning up the property for the wedding, so hopefully it won't take me so long to get an update out. At least this one is extra long right? Longest one yet! And drama, ohhh the drama that shall be had!_

_So I know some of you are probably wondering 'This is a Prowl/OC right? When will the romance start?!' And I have to answer honestly, not for a long while. Darcy doesn't even know about the Cybertronians yet, so the most honest feelings she can have is a physical attraction to his holoform. And for this story, the romance is only the backplot to the main plot going on, for now anyways ;) And finally...this is _Prowl_ we're talking about, he's not going to be jumping into any sort of emotional connection quickly, least of all to a human. Real relationships take time, especially when it comes to the pair of emotionally scarred beings we're dealing with. So if you're willing to stick around for the long-haul, I promise it will be worth it!_

_Police words one needs to know for this chap: Ante-mortem=before death_

_So a huge shout-out to **TM Wolf**, who gave me the kick in the aft I needed to get this out and who let me bounce ideas off of in order to get my muse working again. You are amazing Wolf!_

_**Frog1**: Sorry for keeping you hanging! Hopefully the extra length of this one makes up for it somewhat? What did he mutter under his breath? Some not very nice things about humans and their illogical sayings. ;) Hmmm, what are the 'Cons doing indeed. It's a good guess! But all shall be revealed in time :D_

_xXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX_

_When a good man is hurt, all who would be called good must suffer with him ~Euripides_

Darcy's mind whirled frantically, a million worst-case scenarios mashing and jumbling together in an almost incoherent pattern yet still managed to paint an image she had never wanted to see. Missing? John was missing? It didn't make sense, it wasn't logical. John was a cop, retired now but still a cop, officers didn't just go _missing_. Least of all John, who had to be the most responsible and careful person out there.

"Why do you think he was kidnapped?" Her mouth worked on autopilot, mind too much of a mess to work properly. He couldn't be missing, definitely not kidnapped. He had to have just been home late, gone out to the bar…without telling his wife. That wouldn't be like him at all, but it was the more likely alternative. John wasn't missing, he was just late. His car probably broke down in a service dead zone. He wasn't a victim, he never could be; he knew how to handle himself.

"His car is in the driveway! The keys are still in it and the door is _off_!" Any sort of calm the woman had been holding onto quickly faded away as she burst into sobs, rambling about how she had heard him pull up almost twenty minutes ago but hadn't seen or heard from him since.

With almost startling speed Darcy was out the door with keys in hand. Twenty minutes. That wasn't much of a head start for whoever might have John. It could be enough to get to him in time.

She suddenly remembered Agent Row asleep in her guest room when she spotted his Charger neatly parked behind her SUV. Almost bumper-to-bumper, the muscle car effectively blocked her in; she'd have no choice but to go wake the agent.

But John's life could very well hang in the balance; those precious seconds could not be lost to trivialities. Better to ask forgiveness than permission.

There were only two options before her then, force her way out or borrow the agent's car. Her mind was made in less than a second; she only hoped hotwiring the Charger wouldn't require completely destroying the wiring. But the unlocked doors revealed the single key still in the ignition and Darcy was immensely grateful for the time saved, it could be crucial.

The small part of her brain that told her this wasn't a great idea expected Agent Row to come charging out when she fired up the engine. But he didn't, and she wasn't about to wait for him to.

Hundreds of horses gave a mighty roar as she pealed out of the driveway, spun onto the road and sped down the street. The lightest touch sent the muscle car surging ahead. Lights and sirens wailed and she gave the horses their heads and let the Charger tear up the blacktop.

John lived across town, every second it took to get there seemed to last an eternity; her mentor was missing, her partner, her best friend. She hadn't apologized to him yet and it was entirely possible that she could have just permanently lost her chance.

Cursing, she banged a hand on the steering wheel; why did she have to be so stupid? Why did she have to let her temper get the better of her again? He had warned her, had been trying to help her see reason and she threw it in his face. And that could very well be the last memory of her he took to the grave.

"No." she growled to herself, pushing the Charger faster, hitting speeds that were most likely illegal in every country. That would not be the last memory he had of her, he would not be the next victim; he would not be her next notification. She refused the very possibility of that reality. It wouldn't happen. It _couldn't_. She would find him; she would save his life and kill whoever was responsible. That would be the only form of justice delivered to those who hurt her family. She would personally see to it.

There was definitely something to be said about the incredibly short amount of time it actually took to get to John's house, but whatever relief came from finally getting there disappeared the second she actually saw it.

There was no accepting the denial anymore. No amount of lying to herself could belay the very evidence that lay in the Charger's headlights. John's Crown Victoria sat in the driveway, the driver's door wasn't open; it was _gone_. Darcy stayed in the muscle car for a long moment as she attempted to process just what the hell she was seeing.

Her mind seemed to stutter as she slowly emerged from the safe ignorance of the agent's car. A part of her still demanding that this couldn't be real with every step she took towards the red car.

Where the driver's door should have been hinged to the car was nothing but torn and shredded strips of metal, shining red and silver in the dim porch-light. Darcy's stomach twisted and knotted at the knowledge that not all of the red was the car's paint.

She spun away from the vehicle, taking deep breaths as she tried to get her rolling emotions under control. This was John, he was out there somewhere, bleeding and in the hands of some psychopath and waiting for her to rescue him. She couldn't afford to not be in control.

The all-too-familiar dread sank deep beyond her gut. Grabbing victims of opportunity was one thing; kidnapping a detective in such a manner was intentional and methodical. And so the question nagged at her, was his kidnapping connected to the dumping grounds or something completely different?

Whatever the case, she knew the Chief wouldn't let her investigate when the one who was missing was someone she knew so well. But she wasn't about to let some new rookie take over. No, she'd handle this one quietly; the less the chief knew the better. Sucking in a steadying breath, she knew she couldn't do it alone. She would need Row's help, and she almost regretted leaving him at the house.

Metal glistened in the grass some twenty yards away. Sweet Mother…..it was the _door_! Well….what was once the door. The bundled mass was hardly recognizable as anything, but the broken glass and bits of interior revealed what it had once been.

A hum buzzed in the air behind her, almost imperceptible if not for the dead silence of the still-dark morning. She turned, freezing as a blue light ghosted along John's car, running over every dip and crevice it passed over. It almost lazily passed along the trunk, the hum louder as it…well she wasn't exactly sure what it was doing. Following the thin tendrils to its source gave her a start. It was coming from the _Charger_. And suddenly she understood what the blue light was.

Agent Row's car was scanning the damaged vehicle. How or why she couldn't say. The engine wasn't even running, how the hell was it _scanning_ the other car? Just what kind of division of the FBI was Row in that his car seemed like it was straight out of a James Bond movie?

Her eyes traced back to blue scanners as they moved up to the roof, the light revealing far more damage than she'd originally seen. The back windows were broken in, and as Darcy moved closer to the car, she could see the tiny pieces of glass sparkling on the backseats. But it was the roof that had caught her attention, that made her suck in her breath when she got a closer look at it. Above the back seat the metal was bent, buckled and torn in a way that was almost eerily familiar. While much more extensive in damage, the pattern was identical to that on Tom's truck.

From the main damage, three thick indents expanded outwards across the roof, slightly angled away from each other. As the blue light traced over the damage further, she could make out a fourth dent splaying out from the original, angled along the edge of the roof. It was such a strange and damn-it-all _familiar _pattern that it made a pit of fear creep up her spine, setting nerves on edge and hair on end. It was irrational, she couldn't explain what she was suddenly afraid of, but her heart pounded in her chest nonetheless and her instincts told her to get the hell out of there.

She backed away from the car a few steps, attempting to calm the erratic breathing she hadn't even noticed she was doing. Bringing her hand up to shove her hair back she froze, staring at the limb in front of her. Turning her palm away from her, she dropped her pinkie down and studied to general shape that was created. The blue light had reached the front of the car but she could still see the outline of the mangled indent on the roof.

Whatever improvements her heart had made to returning to a regular rhythm were rendered obsolete when she held up her hand to the indent. It was an almost identical match, albeit at least five times the size. It was a damned _handprint_.

And the fear hit her full force, knocking the breath right out of her. Bending over and bracing herself on her knees, she tried to fill her lungs and shove the fear away. There was nothing _there_, why the hell was she so terrified? The indent had to just be a result of whatever was braced against the car that tore the door off. Whoever did this just made it look like a handprint to freak people out even more. That had to be it; it was the only rational answer. Because the Hulk didn't exist and he certainly didn't kidnapped retired detectives.

The blue scanners reached the front end of the car and disappeared. Almost instantly they appeared at the bottom of her feet, moderately tracing their way up. She knew she shouldn't have been able to feel the light, but her skin prickled anyways, like the ghost of a touch. It was almost warm yet exposing and all around weird.

The foreign feeling made her grateful when it finished and disappeared, and she didn't even want to bother wondering why the car had scanned her in the first place. But the disappearance of the slight warmth and the deluding adrenaline quickly brought her to awareness of just how bloody cold she was. In her haste to get out the door she had forgotten to grab her jacket and her fingers were starting to numb.

The sky was just beginning to lighten, giving her just enough light to make out the skid marks on the road in front of the driveway. She wasn't exactly an expert in this field, but she could take a pretty good guess about which way the kidnappers took John.

Even though a large part of her screamed out to follow the tracks immediately, the rational side of her knew she couldn't go in guns blazing alone. They had managed to take John without raising the alarm of his wife; she would be no good to him if she let herself get caught as well because she was too impatient to get help. Besides, she realized grimly, she'd forgotten her gun at home anyway.

Police sirens wailed in the distance, coming closer with every second. Darcy cursed, of course his wife would call the rest of the department as well, but this meant she couldn't stay and interview her. No, the chief would be furious she was involved already and if she wanted any hope of being able to handle it then she had to make sure the chief had no idea she had ever been there.

Taking note of which direction the skid marks pointed to, she climbed back into the Charger, determined to get Row and go after John.

She couldn't help the slight smile as she got in and found the interior the perfect warmth to get feeling back into her hands. This car—with all its quirks—was an honest-to-God blessing.

Pulling out, she zipped down the road and ducked around the corner just as the cavalry slid into John's driveway.

While the adrenaline slowly faded away, the sense of urgency did not. Every moment John got further and further out of reach, it was crucial she move as quickly as possible. Half a block from her missing partner's home she blasted the sirens and lights again, letting the muscle car charge ahead in speeds probably still illegal in most of the country.

Dawn had fully encroached when she made it to her street, the sun dimly lighting the world through the thick bank of clouds. She cursed lightly, snow was definitely in the near future and that just made everything far more difficult.

She was surprised to pull up and see Row nowhere, but perhaps he was stewing inside, waiting to rip into her the moment she walked in the door. Parking next to her SUV, she left the engine running as she jumped out and jogged towards the door. Whatever Row had to say to her could be said on the move, she could just ask double forgiveness later.

She winced as she pushed through to door and moved straight for her room and gun; she was racking up apologies faster than bills. Charging through the living room, she determined that if Row wanted to chew her out then he was just going to have to keep up to do so. But he wasn't waiting for her in the living room or the kitchen where she grabbed her jacket and she wondered briefly if he was even awake. Flinging the door open to the spare room, she was met with emptiness and a bed that looked like no one had slept in it. Frowning slightly, she ducked into her own room long enough to grab her badge and gun before turning back towards the car. Just where had the FBI agent gone?

As she returned to the outside and the front door closed behind her, she saw him, standing in front of his Charger, stance rigid. Just how the hell had he gotten by her? No way he had been outside waiting, it was barely twenty degrees and there was no red flush to his face to indicate he'd been out in the cold long. But as she took notice of the slight scowl, she realized he looked more like Karl Urban than probably anyone but Karl Urban had a right too. The resemblance was uncanny.

Darcy mentally shook herself from that train of thought, judging from the degree of emotion he was showing and the previous levels it had taken to get such expressions, she figured he was outright pissed. He had every right to be of course, but he could express it later; her limited head start on John's case was slipping away with every passing second.

"John was kidnapped and he was specifically targeted. My guess is it was the same people responsible for the disappearance and murders of the dumping ground victims, luckily I know what direction they were headed in." Darcy recapped for him, bypassing the agent completely and heading for the driver's door of the still-running Charger. She could give him a full briefing after they were already on the road. Tugging on the door, she rationalized that while it was his car, she was the one who knew which way to go. But the door stayed firmly shut and Agent Row had yet to move from his position at the front of the car.

"You did well bringing this case to my attention. But I shall be taking care of it from now on." He stated, his tone flat and authoritative.

"Excuse me?" Why wouldn't the damn door open already? She knew she hadn't locked it when she got out.

His next statement however pulled all of her attention away from the stubborn door. "I am relieving you of duty from this case."

The hell he was.

Every speck of positive feelings for him vaporized in an instant. _This_ was typical FBI, swooping in and taking over. Well, that wasn't about to fly here and now.

"What the hell gives you the right?" It didn't matter if he was bureau, it didn't matter how big this case was or what politics were going on between her and the chief, this was _her_ case, she had called him in for his _help_. There was no evidence of this case crossing state lines, he had no right.

He didn't physically respond to her, his scowl having disappeared into the familiar stoic expression. "You have been emotionally compromised by the case at hand. You are now personally invested and standard procedure is to remove officers connected in such a way to the victim."

She growled, he sounded like a damn computer, "You can't tell me that with this many people you aren't invested as well."

He was so emotionally distant and factual that it royally infuriated her, "No, I am not invested in such a way."

That bastard. Though his tone remained indifferent, the underlying feeling to it was that any sort of emotional connection to the case was foolish and beneath him. She suddenly found herself wishing she had never called the bureau.

"Don't forget it was me who called for your assistance buddy." She snapped, marching up to him and jabbing her finger into his chest. Damn was he solid, "I brought you in on this _local_ case, you have no authority to take me off it."

An eyebrow twitched upwards as he glanced down at the digit assaulting him before he responded smoothly, "On the contrary, I have the government's authority to remove whoever I deem unfit from a case and as you are emotionally unstable from the most recent victim, you are unfit the continue the investigation. I shall handle it from here and update you when the need arises."

When the need arises? Unstable and unfit? Her fists clenched and it took every ounce of willpower she had to not deck the man. He was moving before she could get out a proper response, walking around his car and opening the driver's door with no problem.

Panic struck her then; after fighting the chief to be able to finish the case that had cost her her job, the man she lost it for was going to take it from her? She grasped for something, anything, to make him realize that he needed her as much as she had needed him. "You don't even know what way the kidnappers went!"

It was pathetic, but she was desperate; she had to stay on, to save John. She owed him so much; she couldn't just leave his life in the hands of someone she'd only known for a few days.

"He was headed northwest." And Agent Peter Row disappeared into the car, shut the door and pulled away, leaving Darcy speechless and near the breaking point in her driveway.

She'd lost her job, her best friend and now her chance at getting him back. Keys jingled as she mindlessly shoved her cold hands into her jacket pockets. She pulled them out in a daze, wondering what she had done in a past life to be put through all this.

The silver metal jangled and shined in the early light, a mass of swaying color until Darcy's mind cleared enough to recognize just what they were. The keys to her SUV.

Her spine stiffened and her jaw clenched; she was a detective damn it and no one was going to make her sit idly by while her partner was in trouble. Throwing herself into the front seat, she jammed the key into the ignition and turned, ready to chase down the bastards responsible for all of this. But as the engine choked on the cold before firing up, straight thinking finally barreled its way back into focus. She couldn't exactly go tearing off in the direction the kidnappers had gone. Row had gone that way, was following that lead and knew her SUV well enough that he would know it was her, and after the stunt he had just pulled, she couldn't say she knew him well enough to say how he would respond to that.

There was another way she could help John though; if his kidnapping did have something to do with the other missing people, then perhaps getting answers from the coroner would get her a valuable lead, one Row didn't have.

As much as her frantic emotions tried to tell her to follow the Charger, she turned and drove off in the opposite direction. Row could follow the obvious lead; she would follow the one even the kidnappers might not have known they'd left.

Just because she wasn't actively chasing anyone didn't mean she didn't still blast the lights and sirens all the way to the hospital though.

The morgue was sickeningly full, the temperature of the room dropped to keep the overflow from rotting further. The smell was still horrific, even if tampered by the medical cleaning agents.

Every coroner within four counties had been called in to work on the bodies that had been taken to three hospital morgues and they were still pulling double shifts and sleeping in the break room.

"What do you have for me Doc?" Darcy asked the head mortician as the middle-aged man typed up the latest reports on the one computer in the room.

He sighed, pausing in his typing to remove his glasses and rub his eyes. "Total count right now is sixty-five, but their estimating at least seven more in the pile of bones they're working on." He gestured over his shoulder at the two examiners who were working on turning the mass pile of bone into identifiable bodies. "We've managed to identify some of the more recent victims, but the oldest bones are at least fourteen months old, it'll take us some time to identify those."

A few names, a few families could finally get a semblance of closure, but that wasn't necessarily a lead she could use.

"What about cause of death?" Similar COD would make it easier to link every case to the suspect—or suspects as was the most likely case—when they found him, and it would help build a profile for who to be looking for in the first place.

He sighed again, leaning back in his chair and dropping the glasses onto the keyboard. "I've never seen something like this before. COD's are all over the place. The other Medical Examiners have been comparing what they've found and so far it's been ranging from blood-loss to broken necks and spines to having been crushed." He took a deep breath, running a hand over his tired face. "I haven't had a chance to look at the older victims yet, but the ME over at Grey's did, and his COD's are ranging more towards starvation, dehydration and exposure."

Darcy frowned, rocking back on her heels as she digested this information. Dr. Conners' findings were definitely spot-on for making a solid case of foul play, but… "Starvation, dehydration and exposure sound more like natural causes Doc, is there anything else that you can give me?"

There was no doubt that every single victim in that field had died unnaturally and at the hands of some psychopath, but natural causes would be incredibly difficult to pin to anyone.

Dr. Conners' computer chimed at an incoming e-mail, but he ignored it in favor of answering the detective. "Natural causes to the body yes, in the timeline no." She raised an eyebrow, silently prompting him to elaborate. "Dr. Powell's reports state that those people died way too soon for such causes to have been simply lost in the woods. He closely studied the bones to get an estimate of how long each victim had gone suffering before they passed and he found that those natural causes took half the time they should have."

Conners shook his head, mindlessly grabbing a report file one of the assistants was handing him and dropping it unceremoniously onto the desk. "He also found a large number of bruises, cuts and breaks, especially on the older bones. Whatever natural death finally ended their suffering was the primary cause, but there was a lot going on that sped up the process."

Darcy sighed, wondering not for the first time just what she had gotten herself into. "What was the most common injury?"

He grimaced, "Blunt-force trauma. Whatever was going on when these victims disappeared, they suffered a lot. More than any person should."

Chewing on her lower lip, she contemplated the facts and what they meant. John was in a lot more trouble then she though, and that realization only strengthened her resolve to find him.

"The reports are already in your e-mail." He stated before she could ask for them.

"Thanks Doc." She sighed, thankful that at least some of the questions where being answered, even if the answers brought more questions with them.

He nodded, turning back to the computer and ignored e-mail as Darcy approached the other examiners in the room. They said much of the same things, the older remains appeared to have died of advanced natural causes while the newer victims had varying brutal causes. Darcy paused as she looked over one of the victims being autopsied. What was left of the corpse was burned beyond recognition and flattened into a barely humanoid shape.

"Most of the burns were done ante-mortem by some sort of corrosive chemical the lab has yet to identify." The M.E. responded when she questioned him. "The crushing is what ended this poor woman. I can't say what it was exactly, but it weighed a ton, literally."

It made her wonder if whatever machine had pulled John's door off was also responsible for this victim's death. It was a high probability.

She turned to leave, knowing the full reports of the autopsies completed that were waiting in her e-mail were going to take her all day to go through. And then there were notifications that had to be given to the families of the identified victims. She grimaced at the thought; no matter how many times she had done it before, it never got any easier to tell someone their loved one wasn't coming home.

"Detective." Dr. Conners' voice stopped her in the doorway. He was still at his computer, looking over the e-mail with a grim expression.

"Lab results just came in for the stomach contents of the more recent victims." He stated and she walked back over to him. "Looks like the only thing they were fed was moldy bread. The water they were drinking had to be untreated, judging from the number of victims who had water-borne illnesses when they died. It's like your culprits don't know how to keep people alive."

"Or don't care." She corrected, knowing that was the most likely case, especially given the way the bodies had been disposed of.

"Or both." He suggested, "Look at the cause of deaths. The oldest remains were all dehydrated, then it was starvation and exposure. Yet none of the victims who died in the last seven months died of those causes, and within the last five none have died of massive heart failure. It's like the traffickers are learning how to keep their victims alive longer, though it obviously still means very little to them if their victims live or die in the long run."

"Traffickers?" She raised an eyebrow in question, "Why do you think we're dealing with those kinds of people?" He was probably right, especially considering the sheer number of victims they had found compared to the number of people missing in her county, but it wasn't up to an M.E. to make those connections.

"Because two of the victims we've identified went missing in Indiana and many of the bodies contained insect larvae which couldn't have existed in the temperatures we've had." He explained, tapping away at his computer and bringing up a photograph of the insect larvae.

"Where is it native to?" Darcy asked; as much of a nuisance as bugs often were, they proved to be one of the most valuable pieces of forensic evidence. She'd made breakthroughs in more than one case thanks to them.

Conners shrugged, "The labs are working on it now, they were pretty well preserved in the cold but they are definitely wetter climate bugs. I'd bet Washington or Oregon but we'll know for sure when they finish."

"How long until they have something?" There really was no telling how long the labs would take, but she hoped with such a big case every part of it would be top priority. But Dr. Conners' cousin was the lead forensic tech, so it was possible Conners would have some inside information on the schedule. And after the rather…messy, break-up between the scientist and the detective, Darcy was more than happy to have the M.E. act as mediator between them.

She had no desire to relive those particular memories, so she mentally shook herself and focused instead on what the medical examiner was saying and what she was going to do now that she no longer had departmental or federal help on either of her cases. There was little doubt in her mind that Row would actually keep her updated as he said; he seemed to be the type that only did what was absolutely necessary, and telling someone he had just taken off the case the developments of said case was probably not something he considered 'necessary'.

"….there really is no telling." Conners finished, turning back to his computer as it pinged again. After a moment of quiet he spoke up again, "On a positive note, four more victims were just identified."

Darcy sighed, it was time to bring closure to some families. It just wasn't the kind of closure she had been hoping to bring home to them.

"Thanks Dr. Conners."

"Darcy, we were almost family. How many times do I have to tell you to call me Alan?"

She winced as she turned away, calling out over her shoulder as she left, "At least once more Doc."

As she exited the hospital, her phone rang, saving her from taking a trip down the unpleasant memory lane her mind had started traipsing down. Snow drifted lazily down as she pulled out her phone and stepped out into the parking lot. It wasn't a number she recognized, so she answered with hopes of it being Agent Row realizing his mistake.

It wasn't.

In fact, the "Detective Blake?" that made it through the static wasn't a voice she recognized at all.

"You better get up here as fast as possible." The voice reminded her of the FBI agent with the almost monotonous tone, but there was just enough emotion and inflection in the words that proved it couldn't be him.

"Get up where?" She narrowed her eyes as she approached her SUV, mentally going through every person she knew to see if the voice matched any of them. It didn't.

"To the pit where those bodies were found, you need to see this." The static didn't help the male voice sound anymore familiar, but the roar of a powerful engine in the background definitely made her think of a muscle car.

"Who is this?" She asked as she climbed into her vehicle and fired up the engine. Pulling out of the parking lot, she started towards the mountain highway. She would head up there regardless, but she wasn't about to be careless and charge in blind.

There was a pause, almost as if he was debating answering her.

"Officer Cade." And the line cut out.

Well that was weird. Most likely he just lost service—that he had found any up there was a miracle in and of itself—but the timing was just a little uncanny. Officer Cade? She'd never heard of him. But then, there was a large batch of rookies who had just graduated from the academy; it really wasn't all that surprising that there were officers she didn't know. But Cade? She could have sworn it was Davis who was watching the crime scene as the last of the evidence was getting packed out. Or was it last night that Davis was on duty?

Honestly the last few days were such a mashed-together blur that she couldn't say for sure what day it even was. No wonder she had no idea who was at the dumping grounds.

Glancing at the phone still in her hand, she debated on calling Row. He may have had luck finding John, and if not, then it was always beneficial to share leads. No, he was the one who took the case from her, she wasn't about to just give him the opportunity to take over again. So she tossed the phone over into the passenger seat and hit the gas.

She may not be able to go after John directly, but she was sure as hell going to hunt every lead that could get her closer to the people who had taken him.

xXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX

**Black Wolf-Dog: **_I promised ya'll drama didn't I? And really, there shouldn't be much trouble spotting the Decepticon in this chapter ;) What kind of trouble will Darcy get herself into this time? Let me know what you think will happen and/or what you want to see happen! Just drop a little review, mention anything that stood out to you in this. What did you think of Prowl taking over the case? Or of the mysterious phone call? Or the findings of the M.E.? Reviews feed and inspire the muse!_

_Next time on NRFTW: Darcy reaches the dumping grounds, more answers are uncovered and a few more familiar characters make their entrance._


End file.
